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WORKS BY ORISON SWETT MARDEN 

EFFICIENCY BOOKS 

The Jots of Living 
Training for Efficienct 
The Exceptional Employee 
The Progressive Business Man 

INSPIRATIONAL BOOKS 

Getting On 

Self-Investment 

Every Man a King 

The Optimistic Life 

Rising in the World 

Be Good to Yourself 

Pushing to the Front 

Peace, Power^ and Plenty 

The Secret of Achievement 

He Can Who Thinks He Can 

The Miracle of Right Thought 

The Young Man Entering Business 

SUCCESS BOOKLETS 

Do IT to a Finish Why Grow Old? 

Character Economy 

Cheerfulness Opportunity 

Good Manners An Iron Will 

Success Nuggets Power op Personality 

Not the Salary but the Opportunity 

THOMAS Y, CROWELL COMPANY 




THE 

JOYS OF LIVING 

BY 

ORISON SWETT HARDEN 

AUTHOR OF '* PUSHING TO THE FRONT," 
'* PEACE, POWER, AND PLENTY," ETC. 



To be happy we must harmonize with the 
best thing in us. 

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how 
dearly we pay for its counterfeit. 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY' 

PUBLISHERS 






t)^^^^ 



Copyright, 1913, 
By orison SWETT HARDEN. 



Published February, 1913. 



©CI.A343433 
7/i .' 



Co 

MY FRIENDS 

THE MISSES BROWN 

AND 

MRS. ROOKS 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Living To-day — In the Here and Now 1 

II. A Professional at Living .... 24 

III. The Hunt for Happiness .... 41 

IV. Training the Young toward Sunshine 52 

V. Riches and Happiness 61 

VI. Enjoying without Owning .... 81 

VII. The Sin of Tired Nerves .... 91 

VIII. Think Health and Joy 106 

— * IX. The Joys of Imagination . . . .115 

X. Taking Life too Seriously .... 124 

XL Happiness can be Cultivated . . .139 

- Xll. The Joys of Friendship . . . . .157 

XIII. The Tragedy of Postponed Enjoyment 172 

- XIV. Intellectual and Esthetic Joys . . 191 

XV. "Reading Maketh a Full Man" . . 208 

XVI. The Alchemy of a Cheerful Mind . 226 

XVII. The Twin Enemies of Happiness — Fear 

AND Worry 246 

XVIII. The Strain to Keep up Appearances 

Kills Happiness 276 

V 



vi Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX. Contentment, the Secret of Happi- 
ness 287 

XX. Home Joy Killers 308 

XXI. The Power of the Home Joy . . . 326 

XXII. The Dangers of Thwarted Ambition . 339 

XXIII. An Idle Life an Unhappy Life . . 351 

XXIV. Joy in Our Work 358 

XXV. Turning the Water of Life into Wine 372 

XXVI. Longevity iand Happiness .... 386 



THE JOYS OF LIVING 



LIVING TO-DAY — IN THE HERE AND NOW 

Happy the man and happy he alone, 
He who can call to-day his own; 
He who's secure within can say, 
To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived to-day. 

— Dryden. 
"There never was a land so dear 
But found its hallelujah here." 

If an inhabitant of some other planet were 
to visit America, he would probably think that 
our people were all en route for something be- 
yond, some other destination, and that where 
they happen to be living is merely a way sta- 
tion where they unpack only such of their 
luggage as they need for a temporary stay. 

The visitor would find very few people actu- 
ally living in the here and the now. He would 
find that most people's gaze is fixed upon 
something beyond, something to come. They 
are not really settled to-day, do not really live 
in the now, but they are sure they will live 



The Joys of Living 



to-morrow or next year when business is bet- 
ter, their fortune greater, when they move into 
their new house, get their new furnishings, 
their new automobile, get rid of things that 
now annoy, and have everything around them 
to make them comfortable. Then they will 
be happy. But they are not really enjoying 
themselves to-day. 

Our eyes are so focused upon the future, 
upon some goal in the beyond, that we do not 
see the beauties and the glories all about us. 
Our eyes are not focused for the things near 
us, but those far away. We get so accus- 
tomed to living in our imagination and antici- 
pation that we lose much of our power of en- 
joying the here and the now. We are living 
for to-morrow, to-morrow, and yet, "When to- 
morrow comes it still will be to-morrow!" 

We are like children chasing a rainbow. If 
we could only reach it, what delight 1 We 
spend our lives trading in "futures," building 
air-castles. We never believe that we have 
yet reached the years of our finest living, but 
we always feel sure that that ideal time of life 
is coming. 



Living To-day 3 

Most of us are discontented, restless, nerv- 
ous, and unhappy. There is a far-away look 
in our eyes, which shows that we are not con- 
tent with to-day, that we are not really hving 
here and now, that our minds are on something 
away beyond the present. 

The great majority of people think that the 
proper thing to do is to hve almost anywhere 
except right here and now. Many people 
dwell on the past with its rich but lost oppor- 
tunities, its splendid chances which they have 
let slip; and while they are doing this, they 
waste the precious present which seems of little 
account to them to-day, but which to-morrow 
will begin to take on a new value in their esti- 
mation. It is astonishing what new virtues 
and forces we are able to see and to develop 
in regretful retrospection, the moment these 
have passed beyond our reach. What splen- 
did opportunities stand out after they have 
gone by! Oh! what could we not do with 
them if we had them back ! 

Happiness for many people is marred by 
memories of unfortunate mistakes or bitter ex- 
periences in an unhappy past. To be happy 



4 The Joys of Living 

one must learn to let go, to erase, to bury, to 
forget everything that is disagreeable, that 
calls up unpleasant memories. These things 
can do nothing for us but sap the very vitality 
which we need for correcting our mistakes and 
misfortunes. 

An old farmer was once asked at a meeting 
of the Agricultural Congress to give his opin- 
ion on the best slope of land for the raising of 
a particular kind of fruit. "It does not make 
so much difference," said the old man, "about 
the slope of the land as the slope of the man." 
'Many a farmer who has the right slope makes 
a good living and gets a competence on very 
poor soil, while the farmer who does not slope 
the right way barely exists upon the richest 
soil. 

Happiness does not depend so much upon 
our being favorably environed as upon the 
slope of our mind. 

It is not enough to extract happiness from 
ideal conditions ; any one can do that. But it 
is the self -mastered, the self -poised soul who 
can get happiness out of the most inhospitable 
surroundings. "Paradise is here or nowhere. 



Living To-day 



You must take your joy with you or you will 
never find it." 

The trouble with us is that we expect too 
much from the great happenings, the unusual 
things, and we overlook the common flowers 
on the path of life, from which we might ab- 
stract sweets, comforts, delights. 

It is difficult for many people who are hon- 
estly striving to make the most of themselves 
to see how they can possibly get happiness out 
of their monotonous, humdrum vocations to 
which they are chained by necessity or on ac- 
count of those who are dependent upon them. 
These people would get a good lesson by 
studying the bees, who, eveiy minute during 
the day of the honey season, are finding sweets 
in every weed, in poisonous flowers, in things 
in which we would never think of looking for 
anything good. 

If we are ever happy, it will be because we 
create happiness out of our environment with 
all its vexations, cares, and disheartening con- 
ditions. He who does not learn to create his 
happiness as he goes along, out of the day's 
work with all its trials, its antagonisms, its 



6 The Joys of Living 

obstacles, with all its little annoyances, disap- 
pointments, has missed the great life secret. 
It is out of this daily round of duties, out of 
the stress and strain and strife of life, the attri- 
tion of mind with mind, disposition with dispo- 
sition — out of this huckstering, buying and 
selling world — that we must get the honey of 
Hfe, just as the bee sucks the sweetness from 
all sorts of flowers and weeds. 

The whole world is full of unworked joy- 
mines. Everywhere we go we find all sorts 
of happiness-producing material, if we only 
know how to extract it. "Everything is worth 
its while if we only grasp it and its signifi- 
cance. Half the joy of life is in little things 
taken on the run." 

The men and women who move the world 
must be a part of it; they must touch the life 
that now is^ and feel the thrill of the move- 
ment of civilization as the great life drama is 
enacted. 

Do you ever realize that you are now actu- 
ally living the life which looked so rosy and 
radiant with promise in your childhood and 
adolescence? Do you recognize in the days 



Living To-day 



and weeks as they slip by that iridescent dream 
of the future, which then enchanted your 
youthful fancy, as a mirage in a desert 
charms the senses of the weary traveler? Do 
you ever stop to think that the time you are 
now trying to kill is the very time you once 
looked forward to so eagerly, and which 
seemed then so precious; that the moments 
which now hang so heavily on your hands are 
the same that you then determined should 
never slip from your grasp until you had ex- 
tracted from each its fullest possibilities? 

Why does what looked like paradise to 
you when viewed through youth's telescope 
now seem but a dreary desert? Because your 
vision is distorted. You are looking at your 
environment from a wrong point of view. 
You are disappointed, discontented and un- 
happy, because you did not find the fabled bag 
of gold at the foot of the rainbow, while you 
go on squandering, in useless repining, the 
time that, properly used, would convert your 
present seeming desert into the paradise of 
your early dreams. 

"Yes, here in this miserable, hampered, des- 



The Joys of Living 



picable actual wherein thou even now stand- 
est, — here, or nowhere, is thy ideal. Work it 
out therefrom, — and working, believe, live, be 
free. Fool! the ideal is in thyself; the impedi- 
ment, too, is in thyself ; thy condition is but the 
stuff thou art to shape that same ideal out of. 
What matter whether such stuff be of this sort 
or that, so the form thou give it be heroic, be 
poetic? Oh, thou that pinest in the imprison- 
ment of the actual and criest bitterly to the 
gods for a kingdom wherein to rule, know this 
truth: the thing thou seekest is already with 
thee, here or nowhere, couldst thou only see." 

You thought that when you reached the 
golden land of the future, fruit would fall into 
your lap, without your preparing the ground 
or planting or watering the seed. You 
dreamed that you would reap where you did 
not sow. You are still looking forward, al- 
ways following a mirage. You will wake up 
some day and discover, perhaps too late, that 
there is nothing in mature life for the man who 
will not pay the price in youth. 

We cannot separate our lives from time. 
Why is it that we are so extravagant, so 



LiYiNG To-day 9 

thoughtless, in our waste of time, especially in 
youth, when we cling so tenaciously to life? 
[You cannot separate a wasted hour from the 
same duration of your life. If you waste your 
time, you must waste your life. If you im- 
prove your time, you cannot help improving 
your Hfe. 

How few people ever see the identity be- 
tween their life and time! They seem to 
think they can waste time in all sorts of foolish 
ways, and even in dissipation, without wasting 
the life ; but the two are inseparable. Remem- 
ber, that when you throw away an evening or 
a day, or do infinitely worse than throw it away 
by indulging in pleasures which demoralize and 
tend to deteriorate your character and to 
form vicious habits, you are deliberately fling- 
ing away a part of your very life, and that 
when you grow old you would give anything 
to redeem the precious time you have squan- 
dered. 

There is only one way really to live, and that 
is to start out every morning with a firm reso- 
lution to get the most out of that day, to Kve it 
to the full. No matter what happens or does 



10 The Joys of Living 

not happen, what comes or does not come, re- 
solve that you will extract from every experi- 
ence of the day something of good, something 
that will make you wiser and show you how to 
make fewer mistakes to-morrow. Say to your- 
self, "This day I begin a new life. I will 
forget everything in the past that caused me 
pain, grief, or disgrace." 

I once knew a mother who, after death had 
taken away every one of her children, her hus- 
band and nearly all her relatives, prayed that 
death might relieve her from her awful suffer- 
ing ; but after a few years she was cheerful and 
happy again, consoled in helping others. The 
world did not seem so black, and hfe such a 
failure as she thought it would be. There 
were too many who needed her mothering. 

Nature is marvelously kind to us. She is a 
great physician. She puts "the healing balm 
of Gilead" on all our wounds, and cures our 
mental ills in a wonderful way. If it were 
not for this great heahng potency of nature, 
the world would be funereal enough, for there 
are few of us who have not been borne down 
very close to the sorrow of death. 




Living To-day 11 

Resolve every morning that you will get the 
most out of that day, not of some day in the 
future, when you are better off, when you 
have a family, when your children are grown 
up, when you have overcome your difficulties. 
You never will overcome them all. You will 
never be able to eliminate all the things which 
annoy, trouble, and cause friction in your life. 
You will never get rid of all the little enemies 
of your happiness, the hundred and one little 
annoyances, but you can make the most of 
things as they are. 

The reason why our lives are so lean and 
poverty-stricken, so disappointing and ineffect- 
ive, is because we do not really live in the day ; 
we do not concentrate our energy, our ambi- 
tion, our attention, our enthusiasm, upon the 
day we are living. 

Resolve to enjoy yourself to-day. Enjoy 
to-day, and do not let the hideous shadows of 
to-morrow, the forebodings, and the things you 
dread, rob you of what is yours to-day — your 
inalienable right^to be happy to-day. 

Just have a little heart-to-heart talk with 
yourself every morning, and say: "It does 



12 The Joys of Living 

not matter what comes or what goes to-day, 
what happens or what does not happen, there 
is one thing of which I am sure, and that is, I 
am going to get the most possible out of the 
day. I am not going to allow anything to rob 
me of my happiness, or of my right to live 
this day from beginning to end, and not merely 
to exist. 

"I do not care what comes, I shall not allow 
any annoyance, any happening, any circum- 
stances which may cross my path to-day, to 
rob me of my peace of mind. I will not be 
unhappy to-day, no matter what occurs. I 
am going to enjoy the day to its full, live the 
day completely. This day shall be a complete 
day in my life. I shall not allow the enemies 
of my happiness to mar it. No misfortune in 
the past, nothing which has happened to me 
in days gone by, which has been disagreeable 
or tragic, no enemies of my happiness or effi- 
ciency, shall be a guest in my spirit's sacred en- 
closure to-day. Only happy thoughts, joy 
thoughts, only the friends of my peace, com- 
fort, happiness, and success, shall find enter- 
tainment in my soul this day. None of my 



Living To-day 13 

enemies shall gain admittance to scrawl their 
hideous autographs on the walls of my mind. 
There shall be ^no admittance' to-day, except 
to the friends of my best moods. I will tear 
down the black, sable pictures and hang pic- 
tures of joy, and gladness, of things which will 
encourage, cheer, and increase my power. 
Everything which ever handicapped my life, 
which has made me uncomfortable and un- 
happy, shall be expelled, at least for this day." 
So that when night comes I can say ''I have 
lived to-day/' 

A clean, new, optimistic start like this, every 
morning, will very quickly revolutionize one's 
outlook upon life and increase one's power 
tremendously. It is just a question of master- 
ing the brain, of forming new thought tracts 
in the soft brain tissue, making a path for a 
new happiness habit. 

Why should you make yourself miserable by 
living in the past, by dwelling upon your past 
mistakes, regretting your failure to seize the 
opportunities which you think would have 
made you rich, or blaming yourself for things 
that have injured you? 



14 The Joys of Living 

I have never known a person to accomplish 
anything worth while who was always lashing 
himself, criticising his past and lamenting 
blunders, mistakes, and other things that had 
already happened. 

It will require every bit of energy you can 
muster to make your life a success anyway, 
and you certainly cannot focus your mind on 
the present with that vigor that accomplishes 
things when you are thinking or hving in the 
past. 

Every bit of force which you expend upon 
the things which you cannot change is not only 
thrown away, but you have so much less to 
make your future a success, and so compensate 
for your unfortunate mistakes. Every par- 
ticle of force spent in regret is worse than 
wasted. It does not matter how unfortunate 
or how black the past has been, it should and 
can be outlived. 

Haul down those black, threatening, deplor- 
able pictures in the mind. They only dis- 
courage and incapacitate you from doing good 
work in the present. Drop from memory the 
unfortunate error of judgment; forget the un- 



Living To-day 15 

happy experience, no matter how much it has 
humiliated or handicapped you. Put your 
blunders out of mind and resolve to do better 
in the future. 

Nothing is more foolish, nothing more 
wicked, than to drag the skeletons of the past, 
the hideous images, the foolish deeds, the un- 
fortunate experiences of yesterday into to- 
day's work to mar and spoil it. There are 
plenty of people, who have been failures up 
to the present moment, who could do wonders 
in the future if they only could forget the 
past, if they only had the ability to cut it 
off, to close the door on it forever and start 
anew. 

However unfortunate your past has been, 
forget it. If it throws a shadow upon the 
present, or causes melancholy or despondency, 
if there is nothing in it which helps you ; there 
is not a single reason why you should retain it 
in your memory and there are a thousand rea- 
sons why you should bury it so deeply that it 
can never be resurrected. 

One of the silliest, most inane tasks any 
human being is ever guilty of undertaking is 



16 The Joys of Living 

that of trying to modify, to change, the un- 
changeable. 

There is a strange propensity in human 
nature to locate all the good things of life in 
an existence that is yet to come to us. Man 
is immortal now; is not to be, but is immortal. 
We are perfect now in our God nature, and if 
we would only claim these things as ours now, 
instead of trying to acquire them in the future, 
we should grow by leaps and bounds. 

Happiness is something that we must take 
as we go along, or we lose it. When the 
Children of Israel were passing through the 
desert they were fed with manna fresh every 
day. Some of the people did not have faith 
enough to trust the Lord to feed them every 
day, and so they tried to store up some of this 
manna for future use; but it spoiled. This 
taught the Israelites a lesson of faith. They 
could not keep the manna for the future ; they 
must trust the Great Giver of All Good. 
They must have faith that he would feed them 
every day. Our happiness is like this manna. 
We must gather it anew every day we live. 

Everywhere we see people who have tried to 



Living To-day 17 

store up what was intended for their daily hap- 
piness, as manna for the future. But they are 
surprised to find that it has spoiled, evaporated, 
would not keep, — that it must be used as we go 
along. We must use happiness when fresh, 
like fresh plucked flowers. 

There are a great many things, such as good 
impulses, which are good for to-day, but not 
for to-morrow. How many people delay the 
kindness, the expression of love, until the per- 
son is dead, beyond their reach, and then try to 
atone for a neglected past by flowers and tears 
at the funeral! 

To-day is the day to say the kind word that 
springs to your lips, to obey the generous im- 
pulse that stirs your heart. These people who 
haunt your mind, and whom you promise your- 
self that you will help some time, need your 
help now, and you can give it more readily 
now than at any other time. Every to-morrow 
has, in addition to its own cares and duties, all 
those which were neglected in the past, while 
its opportunities and possibihties are no greater 
than were those of yesterday. 

What makes you think that you are going 



18 The Joys of Living 

to do wonderful things to-morrow when to- 
day seems so commonplace, so void of opportu- 
nity ? Why does to-day look so prosy ; to-mor- 
row so rosy, so poetic? 

What reason have you to believe that you 
are going to be ideally happy and harmonious, 
unselfish and helpful at some indefinite time 
in the future, when to-day you are irritable 
and selfish, uncharitable and unhappy? How 
is it that in some distant future you expect to 
get so much time to write letters to your friends 
and to those who are sick and discouraged, and 
also to devote to self -improvement, to broaden- 
ing your mind, when you can find no time for 
these things to-day? 

What is there in to-morrow that can work 
such magic of improvement upon to-day? 
Why do you feel that you are going to be so 
generous to-morrow when you are so stingy 
and narrow to-day? Why think that you are, 
some time, going to pick up the many things 
lying about the house — almost useless to you, 
but which would be valuable to those who are 
poorer than yourself — that you are going to 
make up a box of cast-ofF clothing, books, 



Living To-day 19 

pictures, and other things that you can spare 
just as well as not, and send them next week 
or next month to those who really need them? 
You have not done it in the past, why delude 
yourself into thinking that you will do it in 
the future? 

How many people, not through stinginess 
but from sheer thoughtlessness and ignorance 
of the needs of others, stow things away 
in cellar or attic that might help to open the 
way to a great future for some poor boy or 
girl! 

Go up to your attic to-day, look in your 
trunks and about your house and see how many 
things are lying around that you can not only 
dispense with, but which are really in your way, 
that would bring a measure of comfort and 
happiness to others less fortunate than your- 
self. 

Look over your old clothing and pick out 
the articles that you will never wear again, 
but which would prove a real godsend to some 
poor girls out of employment or who have so 
many depending upon them that they cannot 
afford to buy necessary clothing for them- 



20 The Joys of Living 

selves. Do not keep those things until they 
become useless, thinking you may need them 
some time. Let them do good now, pass them 
along to-day. They have served your turn. 
Let them be messengers of good cheer, evi- 
dences of your love and thoughtfulness of 
others. 

Do not be selfish, at least with the things 
that you can spare. Do not hoard them, think- 
ing that you may want them later. You can 
make an infinitely greater investment, in your 
own character, in satisfaction and happiness, 
by giving them away than by keeping them, in 
anticipation of some future contingency that 
will never arise. You may not be as magnan- 
imous as you ought to be. Giving will soften 
your heart and open a little wider the door of 
your generosity. 

There are probably books in your library, or 
lying around the house, which no one has looked 
in for years, or will read for years to come, 
which would be of inestimable value to boys 
and girls who are trying to educate themselves 
under great difficulties. Pass them on to-day. 
The more you give away the more you will 



Living To-day 21 

have and enjoy. The habit of stinginess 
strangles happiness ; the habit of giving multi- 
plies it. 

A highly cultured and refined woman not 
long ago told me of her struggles to get a 
musical education. She was so poor that for 
a long time she could not afford to hire any 
kind of an instrument, and used to practice for 
hours daily on a piano keyboard which she had 
had marked on a sheet of brown paper. 

While struggling to get along in this way, 
she was invited to a dinner at the home of a 
wealthy family. After dinner she was shown 
over the house by her hostess, who took her 
from kitchen to attic. 

"And there," says the lady, "in the attic, I 
saw stored away an old piano, which I would 
have given anything I had in the world to have 
possessed. I would have been glad to have 
walked a long distance every day for the privi- 
lege of practicing on it. I cared nothing for 
the sumptuous dinner, the handsome furniture, 
the beautiful pictures, and evidences of luxury 
on every hand, but that old piano, lying unused 
in the attic, haunted me. It would have 



22 The Joys of Living 

opened the door to paradise for me, yet I dared 
not ask for it." 

There are hundreds of poor girls in this 
country struggling to get a musical education 
to-day who cannot afford any kind of a piano. 
Why not give your superfluous piano or organ 
to some struggler? 

No one is so poor that he can not give some- 
thing to enrich another, every day of his life. 
He who hoards his joys to make them more is 
like the man who said : "I will keep my grain 
from mice and birds, and neither the ground 
nor the mill shall have it. What fools are 
they who throw away upon the earth whole 
handfuls!" 

Give! give! give now, to-day! Help your- 
self to grow larger, broader, happier, more use- 
ful to humanity as the years go by. 

Many a man defers his happiness until he 
gets rich. Then he is surprised to find that 
his manna is spoiled, that he should have eaten 
it when first given. Deferred happiness and 
the deferred good deed do not keep. 

Every one should start out with a tacit un- 
derstanding with himself that whatever comes 



Living To-day 23 

to him, or does not come, that whether he is suc- 
cessful in his particular undertaking or unsuc- 
cessful, he will at least be happy as he goes 
along, that he will not allow anything to rob 
him of the enjoyment which ought to come to 
every one each day. 

He should resolve that he will not allow any 
little accident or incident, or any conditions, 
however trying, to interrupt the natural flow of 
his sense of well-being, comfort, and happiness. 

Remember that yesterday is dead. To-mor- 
row is not yet born. The only time that be- 
longs to you is the passing moment. One 
might liken the sixty minutes in the hour to 
flowers, that live for only sixty seconds and 
then die. If we get the good that belongs to 
us here and now, we must extract the sweetness 
of each passing minute while it is ours. That 
is the real art of living in the to-day. 



II 

A PROFESSIONAL AT LIVING 

He who is his own monarch contentedly sways the scepter 
of himself, not envying the glory to crowned heads of the 
earth. — Sie Thomas Brown. 

Is it not a strange thing that while we ought 
to make a profession of living, most of us are 
not even amateurs in this art of arts? We 
never learn the business of real living. We 
become specialists in our profession or our 
business, but in right living, which makes or 
mars the happiness of Ufe, we never become 
experts. We know next to nothing about the 
human machine, which holds the secret of all 
our success and happiness. We pay much 
less attention to it than we do to our business 
mechanism. 

The human machine is the only medium by 
which the soul and the mind connect with the 
material world, and this marvelous mechan- 
ism, this temple Beautiful, should be kept in 
the superbest condition, for whatever mars it 
mars the soul's expression. 

24, 



A Professional at Living 25 

In our present system of education we are 
taught nearly everything except the very thing 
that we ought to know most about — the art of 
hving. The schools and colleges teach scores 
of things that we never use directly in practical 
life, but scarcely a word about our marvelous 
human mechanism ; and many a college gradu- 
ate cannot even locate or describe the vital 
organs upon which his very life and welfare 
depend. He may know a lot about dead 
languages which he will never use; he may 
know much about the earth, about history, poli- 
tics, philosophy, and sociology, but about his 
human machine, this marvelous mechanism 
which means more to him than anything else 
in the world, he has been taught practically 
nothing. 

The art of living is more important to man 
than anything else, and yet he goes through 
life using the human machine, ignorant of its 
construction, though it is a million times more 
delicate and requires infinitely finer adjust- 
ment and more expert attention than any other 
mechanism in the world. 

What would you think of a man who would 



26 Th e Joys of Liying 

buy the finest and most expensive automobile 
on the market and put it in charge of a man 
who had never seen such a vehicle in his life, 
and who knew absolutely nothing about it, 
and then, with his family, start out for a tour 
of the world? 

To become an expert chauffeur a man must 
know how to take an automobile to pieces and 
put it together. He must be familiar with 
every part of the mechanism, must know the 
functions of each in its relation to the whole, 
because precious lives depend upon his knowl- 
edge, his skill, and his expertness. 

But what does the average person know 
about this marvelous human machine, so deli- 
cately adjusted that every one of the billion of 
cells composing it is modified by each thought 
and each mood that passes through the mind? 

A professional at living would not mar his 
day's run of the human machine, as most of us 
do, would not impair its marvelous expression, 
its output, by overeating or undereating, or by 
irregular living. He would not allow himself 
to be crippled for days by burning out its deli- 
cate brain and nerve cells with the fires of hot 



A Professional at Living 27 

temper, by shocks of hatred, jealousy, fear or 
worry. Instead, he would protect this mar- 
velously delicate and sensitive mechanism from 
its multitude of physical and mental enemies. 

What a pity that people do not know the 
science of human engineering, of training and 
running the human machine so that there will 
be the least possible friction, the science of 
making the most of everything in the environ- 
ment, of grinding everything into material for 
life's great masterpiece, just as Michael An- 
gelo ground every experience of life into paint 
for his great masterpieces. 

The best locomotive engine that science has 
been able to construct is able to transmute into 
propelling power less than twenty per cent, of 
the energy stored in the coal, and only one per 
cent, of the coal's energy in the electric light 
power house ever reaches the electric bulb to 
give light to the world. 

The human machine, even at its best, is not 
yet able to transmute into practical propelling 
power, or hght, but a pitiably small percentage 
of human energy or intelligence. 

Under scientific management the human 



28 The Joys of Living 

machine would be capable of expressing mar- 
velous efficiency, harmony, perpetual happi- 
ness. But who ever heard of a real expert, a 
master, in the art of scientific living? We 
keep the human machine crippled a large part 
of the time by bad management, so that it is 
incapable of expressing a tithe of its possibili- 
ties. Many men who are very successful in 
their business make a daily botch of their liv- 
ing. 

How few people do you know who are 
really happy? And yet, each human being is 
trying to be happy, really wants to be happy — 
but is expressing discord instead of harmony 
because his machine is out of order, and he 
either does not know how to remedy the defect 
or he is not willing to pay the price in training, 
in scientific effort, to become an expert in 
human engineering. 

How many pangs we suffer, what humilia- 
tions, what embarrassments, simply because 
our human machine is not scientifically cared 
for and perfectly adjusted! 

Think what we suffer through the sin of 
tired nerves, because the human machine has 



A Professional at Living 29 

been abused, so that it is incapable of running 
without friction ; of expressing harmony. We 
did not want to pain those we love, to be 
irritable, fretful; we did not want to destroy 
the peace of our home by our nervous, touchy, 
irritable, nasty moods. We did not want to 
injure the people we insulted and abused when 
out of sorts; we had no idea of hurting them, 
but the human machine was out of order; the 
brain cells and the nerve cells were poisoned 
by fatigue, by the broken-down cells, the debris 
from the previous day's run. The sensitive 
nervous mechanism expressed discord, when it 
was made to express harmony, simply because 
it was not running smoothly, was not properly 
adjusted; it often balked when it had not been 
properly refreshed and rejuvenated by a good 
night's sleep. Worry, anxiety, overeating, too 
many stimulants, dissipation, the violating in 
some way of nature's laws, was responsible for 
all this. 

We had no idea of reviling, criticising, chas- 
tising, abusing our friends, or treating with 
contempt the people with whom we transact 
business; but the human machine was upset 



30 The Joys of Living 

through the lack of scientific management, of 
systematic regular care. 

There is nothing, except exposure in crime, 
that is so humiliating to a man who thinks any- 
thing at all of himself, as so to lose control of 
his human machine that it races wild, doing all 
sorts of damage, while he, the chauffeur, is 
utterly helpless to stop or control it. 

One of the most humiliating things about a 
hot temper is that when a man has lost self-con- 
trol he makes an awful spectacle of himself. 
When he has lost command of his brain, he 
reveals the brute in him which ordinarily he 
tries to hide from his fellows — all his vicious 
traits, his mean, contemptible, nasty disposi- 
tion — the side of himself which he would give 
anything in the world to conceal from his dear- 
est friends. Everything is brought out to the 
light and to the censure of those whose esteem 
he covets. 

Do you, who say you cannot control your 
temper, that the explosion comes before you 
have time to think, ever consider that your 
brain is not you; that it is absolutely within 
your control; that the great human machinery 



A Professional at Living 31 

is outside the mind ; that you can control every 
thought and be master of every emotion, with 
proper training, — so that your machine will 
never run wild, the brain never race away with 
you? You are the man behind the brain. 

Did you ever consider that there are some 
people in whose presence you never would 
think of losing self-control, no matter what 
the provocation? There is somebody whose 
very presence would keep you from los- 
ing your bearings under the most provok- 
ing circumstances. Almost every man knows 
some woman, or has some friend, before 
whom nothing in the world could move him 
beyond his self-control. On the other hand, 
before an employee, upon whom he looks as 
part of the machinery of his business, for whom 
he has no real regard or sympathy, or at home, 
where he feels little restraint, he would lose his 
temper at the slightest provocation. This 
proves that we can control ourselves to an in- 
finitely greater extent than we seem to think. 
The most explosive-tempered person would 
not show anger at a reception or dinner to dis- 
tinguished persons, no matter what the fancied 



32 The Joys of Living 

insult might be. He would not think of such 
a thing. If we had the proper regard for 
every one, if we respected even the humblest 
human being, as we ought to, and respected 
ourselves sufficiently, we should have little 
trouble in controlling ourselves. 
, The majority of people carry in their minds 
and in their hearts, grudges, jealousy, envy, 
antipathies, prejudices, which, although not 
very pronounced in their expression, are fester- 
ing within and poisoning the inner life. 

Just think what a revolution would come 
into our entire lives if we were even careful 
about the tone of our voices ! You can use the 
sweetest and most endearing language possible 
to a dog in a tone of voice that will frighten 
him out of his wits, and make him unhappy for 
hours. On the other hand, you can use the 
worst possible language to him in a gentle, 
soothing voice and set his tail wagging, and 
bring him to you. 

The language of our manner has everything 
to do with the happiness of every one around 
us, as well as of ourselves. Throw a bone at a 
dog and he will take it, and run away from 



A Professional at Living 33 

you with his tail between his legs, without the 
slightest expression of gratitude; but, call him 
to you in a gentle tone, and let him take the 
bone out of your hand, and he will show his 
gratitude. 

Much of the friction in life is caused by the 
tone of voice. The voice expresses our feel- 
ings, our attitude toward others. The dis- 
cordant tone, which expresses antagonism and 
an uncongenial mental attitude, is trying. 
Even the mechanical lowering of the voice, as 
you feel the hot blood rushing through your 
veins when angry, will tend to allay your pas- 
sion. We know how angry children will work 
themselves up to a perfect rage by screaming 
and yelling when things go wrong. The 
louder they scream, the more they yell, the 
madder they get, until they sometimes become 
hysterical. Their own angry tone feeds the 
fire of passion; whereas, a low tone, a gentle 
tone would help to extinguish the brain fire. 

How much unhappiness in the home would 
be avoided if all the members of the family 
could agree never to raise their voices! If 
fault-finding, censorious husbands would only 



34 The Joys of Living 

instead read aloud in the magic book of endear- 
ing words, in an appealing voice, when they 
were trying to get something which would 
mean everything to them ; if they would adopt 
in the married life the same methods as during 
courtship, when they were eager to win the ob- 
ject of their affection! 

The sarcastic, cutting, resentful, discordant 
tone of voice is responsible for a large part of 
the unhappiness not only in the home, but also 
in business, and in society. 

Small natures who fret and stew and allow 
themselves to be annoyed and hampered by 
petty things, show by these ear-marks that 
they are not big enough to command the situa- 
tion, that they are not able to cope with con- 
ditions and preserve harmony. Their irritable 
ways indicate that they are out of harmony 
with their environment, that they hold the 
wrong attitude towards it, and hence they can- 
not be masters of the situation, but are its 
victims. 

People who are inclined to lose their temper, 
to fly into a passion at the slightest provoca- 
tion, little realize that if they permit many of 



A Professional at Living 35 

these conflagrations, the nerve cells will burn 
out the short circuits from constantly crossing 
the wires, injuring the fine, delicate mechanism 
of the brain, and after a while that they will 
lose the power of self-control, and be unable to 
restrain themselves. They will become hair- 
triggered and explode automatically. 

There is no more humiliating spectacle than 
the exhibition of a man's meanest and most 
contemptible and most brutal qualities when in 
anger. At such a time Reason is strangled. 
Wisdom hides her head in shame, Good Sense 
and Good Judgment get down off the throne, 
and the beast vaults upon the royal seat and 
Anarchy rules throughout the mental king- 
dom. 

After you have passed through such a pas- 
sion fire, you feel that something precious 
has been burned out of your life. Your self- 
respect, your dignity, have been scorched in the 
conflagration. 

I once saw a child in a perfect rage of pas- 
sion taken before a mirror and he was so 
ashamed and chagrined at the awful spectacle 
that he stopped crying. If adults could only 



36 The Joys of Living 

see themselves when they are burning up with 
passion, when the conflagration is raging 
through their brain, and tearing their nervous 
system to tatters, when the beast looks out of 
the eyes, it would seem as though they could 
never again be induced to make such spec- 
tacles of themselves. 

The consciousness that you yourself are a 
power back of the brain, that you are in charge 
of the human machine, is a wonderful aid to 
self-control. 

The story is told of an elderly woman who 
went to a photographer's to have her picture 
taken. She was seated before the camera 
wearing the same stem, hard, forbidding look 
that had made her an object of fear to the chil- 
dren living in the neighborhood, when the 
photographer, thrusting his head out from the 
black cloth, said suddenly, "Brighten the eyes 
a little." 

She tried, but the dull and heavy look still 
lingered. 

"Look a little pleasanter," said the photog- 
rapher, in an unimpassioned but confident and 
commanding voice. 



A Professional at Living 87 

"See here," the woman retorted sharply, "if 
you think that an old woman who is dull can 
look bright, that one who feels cross can be- 
come pleasant every time she is told to, you 
don't know anything about human nature. It 
takes something from the outside to brighten 
one up." 

"Oh, no, it doesn't! It's something you can 
work from the inside. Try it again," said the 
photographer, good-naturedly. 

His tone and manner inspired faith, and she 
tried again, this time with better success. 

"That's good! That's fine! You look 
twenty years younger," exclaimed the artist, as 
he caught the transient glow that illuminated 
the faded face. 

She went home with a queer feeling in her 
heart. It was the first compliment she had re- 
ceived since her husband had passed away, and 
it left a pleasant memory. When she reached 
her little cottage, she looked long in the glass. 
"There may be something in it," she said, "but 
I'll wait and see the picture." 

When the photograph came, it was like a 
resurrection. The face seemed alive with the 



38 The Joys of Living 

lost fires of youth. She gazed long and ear- 
nestly, then said in a clear, firm voice, "If I 
could do it once, I can do it again." 

Approaching the little mirror above her 
bureau, "Brighten up, Catherine," she said, 
and the old light flashed up once more. 

"Look a Uttle pleasanter!" she commanded; 
and a calm and radiant smile diffused itself 
over her face. 

Her neighbors soon remarked the change 
that bad come over her: "Why, Mrs. A, you 
are getting young! How do you manage it?" 

"It is all done from the inside. You just 
brighten up inside and feel pleasant" 

No one can be really happy or successful un- 
less he is master of his moods, unless he be- 
comes an expert in running his human machine 
and keeps it mentally and physically always 
in superb condition. Everything depends 
upon the machine. 
' Of course a complicated machine may do 
remarkable things, even with the sand grind- 
ing out its delicate bearings, and though not 
properly cared for or lubricated ; but the same 
machine would do wonders and would last in- 



A Professional at Living 39 

finitely longer, if it were kept in perfect con- 
dition, perfectly adjusted. 

A watch keeps accurate time not merely be-\ 
cause it has a faultless mainspring, a superb '^ 
balance wheel or hair-spring. Perfect time 
does not come from any one part of the watch, 
but is the result of the action and absolute ad- 
justment and symmetrical relation of the 
scores of wheels, bearings, springs, etc. ^ 

If the watch were absolutely perfect, bar- 
ring one imperfect cog of one of the tiniest 
wheels, this imperfection would defeat the 
ends of the watch-maker. Not only must 
every little screw or pin, every individual cog, 
add its perfection to the perfect whole, but all 
of the parts must also be correlated so as to 
produce harmony. 

Health to the body is what time is to the 
watch. It is the perfect time of the body, the 
harmonious relation and inter-relation of all 
the parts; the slightest imperfection anywhere 
would throw the whole body out of harmony. 
Well-developed muscles, capacious lungs, a 
perfect liver, do not necessarily constitute 
health. Perfect health is the result of the 



40 The Joys of Living 

harmonious action of all the organs of the 
body. 

Health of the moral ilature results from the 
harmonious action of all the moral faculties. 
A moral chronometer cannot keep perfect 
time with a defective part anywhere. 

Power and happiness come from the har- 
monious, symmetrical development and expert 
operation of the human machine. 



Ill 

THE HUNT FOR HAPPINESS 

"I followed Happiness to make her mine, 
Past towering oak and swinging ivy vine. 
She fled, I chased, o'er slanting hill and dale. 
O'er fields and meadows, in the purpling vale 
Pursuing rapidly o'er dashing stream, 
I scaled the dizzy cliffs where eagles scream; 
I traversed swiftly every land and sea. 
But always Happiness eluded me. 

"Exhausted, fainting, I pursued no more, 
But sank to rest upon a barren shore. 
One came and asked for food, and one for alms; 
I placed the bread and gold in bony palms. 
One came for sympathy, and one for rest; 
I shared with every needy one my best; 
"When, lo! sweet Happiness, with form divine. 
Stood by me, whispering softly, *I am thine.' " 

Man was made to be happy. The desire for 
fun, for amusement, for play, for joys that 
endure, is very strong in every normal person. 

If the majority of the people in the world 
were asked to express their three greatest 
wishes they would be health, wealth, and hap- 
piness. If every human being were told to 
ask for his supreme wish in life, the majority 
would ask for happiness. 

41 



42 The Joys of Living 

Every normal human being is really on a 
perpetual search for happiness. He may not 
think he is, but this is a mighty motive with 
every human being. We are all striving to 
better our condition in life, to make life a little 
more livable. We are trying to get, httle by 
little, more and more emancipation from 
drudgery and hard work and exacting con- 
ditions. 

And yet while the entire human race has 
been hunting for happiness from the dawn of 
history, how few have ever found it or have 
much of an idea what it is! 

That they have not found happiness where 
they expected to find it has been the experience 
of every human being who has made a spec- 
ialty of hunting for it. Happiness is not 
gained that way. It is the product of a deed 
and not to be found by hunting, as sportsmen 
hunt for wild animals. 

Real happiness is so simple that most people 
do not recognize it. It is derived from the 
simplest, the quietest, the most unpretentious 
things in the world. 

Happiness does not abide with low ideals, 



The Hunt for Happiness 43 

with selfishness, idleness, and discord. It is a 
friend of harmony, of truth, of beauty, of 
affection, of simplicity. 

Multitudes of men have made fortunes, but 
have murdered their capacity for enjoyment 
in the process. How often we hear the re- 
mark, "He has the money, but cannot enjoy 
it." 

"Some folks tries so hard ter be happy in 
dis worl' dey gits miserable trjdn'. Happi- 
ness is alius whar you ain't lookin' fer it." 

Who seeks happiness selfishly will never 
taste the blissful satisfaction which comes 
from the unqualified approval of an act. 
Happiness always eludes the selfish seeker. 
Selfishness and happiness cannot live to- 
gether. 

No human being, however rich, has ever 
found happiness by selfish seeking, for selfish- 
ness is not an ingredient in any of the endur- 
ing satisfactions of life. No man can be 
satisfied with a selfish act, for it violates the 
very law of his being. We inwardly despise 
ourselves for every selfish act. 

Those who are capable of the highest, most 



44 The Joys of Living 

disinterested appreciation find the most in life 
to enjoy. The habit of learning to appreci- 
ate to the utmost every situation in life adds 
wonderfully to the sum total of one's happi- 
ness. But many people are incapable of real 
happiness because they never learn to appre- 
ciate anything except that which appeals to 
their own comfort, pleasure, or appetite. 

People who are always thinking of them- 
selves, who are always trying to find some- 
thing which will make them happy, some 
indulgence which will gratify their selfish 
cravings, are always disappointed seekers. 
Happiness was born a twin, and only he who 
seeks another's good, another's welfare, an- 
other's happiness, can find his own. 

A man can have no greater delusion than 
that he can spend the best years of his life 
coining all of his energies into dollars, neglect- 
ing his home, sacrificing friendships, self- 
improvement, and everything else that is really 
worth while, for money, and yet find happi- 
ness at the end! 

If a man coins his ability, his opportunities, 
into dollars, and neglects the cultivation of 



The Hunt for Happiness 45 

the only faculties which are capable of appre- 
ciating the highest happiness during all the 
years he is accumulating wealth, he cannot 
effectively revive these atropliied brain cells. 
His enjoyment, after he makes his money, 
must come from the exercise of the same facul- 
ties which he has employed in making it. He 
cannot undo the results of a life habit after 
he retires from business. 

If you have not kept alive your ability to 
appreciate the beautiful, the good, and the 
true, you will be as surprised to find that it has 
left you as Darwin was when, in middle life, 
he discovered all at once that he had lost 
his power to appreciate Shakespeare and 
music. 

Many men purchase the means of enjoy- 
ment at the cost of the power to enjoy. They 
murder the capacity for happiness while pur- 
chasing the means for happiness itself. Even 
the criminal thinks that his crime will improve 
his condition, that the theft will enrich him, or 
that he will get rid of an enemy that stands in 
the way of his happiness when he commits 
manslaughter. 



46 The Joys of Living 

No man can be happy when he despises his 
own acts, when he has any consciousness of 
wrong, whether of motive or act. No man 
can be happy when he harbors thoughts of re- 
venge, jealousy, envy, or hatred. He must 
have a clean heart, and a clean conscience, or 
no amount of money or excitement can make 
him truly happy. With the sense of having 
done right men have been known to be happy 
amid the most adverse circumstances. With- 
out that sense, men have been known to be 
most miserable with every worldly want 
supplied. 

Fouquier Tinville, the prosecutor of the 
Revolutionary Committee in France during 
the Reign of Terror, claimed to find great 
pleasure in watching the execution of the 
beautiful, the brave, the young, the noble, the 
aged. It is said that during the trials a 
prisoner's acquittal made Tinville very un- 
happy, his condemnation happy. He used to 
find his relaxation from fatigue in his office, 
in watching the execution of his unfortunate 
victims. *'That spectacle," he said, "did give 
me pleasure." 



The Hunt for Happiness 47 

One man finds his pleasure in that which 
debauches, and which makes him ashamed 
and disgusted the next day. Another finds 
his greatest pleasure in helping the unfortu- 
nate out of trouble. 

"We had such a good time!" or "Such a 
happy day!" Often we hear this remark 
from people after they have returned from 
some place where they went seeking enjoy- 
ment. We hear this expression from all 
sorts of people; but it scarcely means the 
same thing in any two instances. The word 
"happy," without indicating the quality of the 
happiness, does not mean much. 

We may not recognize our motives but we 
are all trying to better ourselves, to get a 
little more comfort, a little easier position, a 
little more happiness, a little more out of life 
than we have been getting. 

Real happiness, however, is not titillation of 
the nervous system. It does not. come from 
eating, drinking, seeing, or hearing. It does 
not come from the gratification of desires or 
of possession. Real happiness is born of 
noble endeavor, a useful life. It is extracted 



48 The Joys of Living 

a little here, a little there, from a kind word, a 
noble deed, a generous act, helpful assistance. 
We get a little bit of it from every right 
thought, from every kind word or deed, and it 
cannot be found anywhere else. Happiness, 
it has been said, is a mosaic composed of very 
little stones. Each taken singly is of little 
value ; but when all are grouped together, com- 
bined and set, they form a pleasing and grace- 
ful whole-^a costly jewel. 

Remember, Mr. Happiness-Chaser, that 
wherever you go for happiness, you will only 
find what you take with you yourself. Your 
happiness can never be outside of yourself 
and it must be bounded by your own limita- 
tions. Your ability to appreciate and enjoy 
will mark the bounds of your happiness. 

"We shall find nothing in the world which 
we do not find in ourselves." Happiness 
comes from a vigorous self-expression of the 
highest thing of which we are capable. It is 
the child of honest effort. 

Notwithstanding the whole philosophy of 
the Bible tends to emphasize the fact that the 
kingdom of heaven is within man, yet, in all 



The Hunt for Happiness 49 

times, the great majority of people have been 
hunting for the kingdom of heaven that is 
without, not within themselves at all. 

People spend their lives trying to gain this 
kingdom in material things — in money, in 
houses, and lands, in food, and drink, and 
clothes, in having "a good time." In other 
words, they try to find the kingdom of heaven 
through their five senses, through that which 
will tickle the nerves, that which will give an 
agreeable sensation; that is, they are always 
looking for an outside God, Everywhere we 
see people crowding, jamming the strong, 
crushing the weak, all trying to get something 
away from somebody else, which they think 
would add to their happiness if they could only 
get hold of it. 

The trouble with us is that we try to find 
happiness where it does not exist, in transient, 
impermanent things; we try to find it in the 
gratification of desire; we seek it in animal 
pleasure. Happiness lives in giving, in doing, 
not in getting, in grasping. 

Piling things around you, no matter how 
high, can never make you happy. What thq 



50 The Joys of Living 

man is, not what he has, makes him happy or 
miserable. 

The human heart is always hungry. Eut 
unhappiness is the hunger to get ; happiness is 
the hunger to give. True happiness must 
ever have the tinge of sorrow outlived. 

Happiness is a reward for worthy services 
to others, for heroic endeavor in trying to do 
our part in the world, to perform our duty. 
There must be the desire to be helpful, to make 
the world a better place to live in, because 
of our efforts. Little kindnesses, pleasant 
words, little helps by the way, trifling cour- 
tesies, little encouragements, duties faithfully 
done, unselfish service, work that we enjoy, 
friendships, love and affection — all these are 
simple things, yet this, perhaps, is as near as 
we can come to finding and capturing illusive 
Happiness. 

Beneath all our different races or creeds, 
sect prejudices, there is a oneness of life, a 
unity of essence which, if we were only con- 
scious of it, would dispel all differences of 
race hatred or class prejudice. We would 
know that if all human beings are children of 



The Hunt for Happiness 51 

the same Father and Mother God, we must be 
of the same blood, the same in essence, of one 
Universal Brotherhood. 

"I have come to see life," says William 
Dean Howells, "not as the chase of a forever 
impossible personal happiness but as a greed 
for endeavor toward the happiness of the whole 
human family. There is no other success." 

"Ah! when shall all men's good be each man's rule. 

And universal Peace lie like a shaft of light across the land 

And like a lane of beams athwart the sea 

Through all the circle of the Golden Year?" 



IV 

TRAINING THE YOUNG TOWARD SUNSHINE 

If it lay in me, I would do as the philosopher did who caused 
the pictures of Gladness and Joy, of Flora and the Graces, to 
be set up roundabout the schoolhouse. — Montaigne. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, in advanced 
years, acknowledged his debt of gratitude to the 
nurse of his childhood, who studiously taught 
him to ignore unpleasant incidents. If he 
stubbed his toe, or skinned his knee, or bumped 
his nose, his nurse would never permit his mind 
to dwell upon the temporary pain, but claimed 
his attention for some pretty object, or charm- 
ing story, or happy reminiscence. To her, he 
said, he was largely indebted for the sunshine 
of a long life. It is a lesson which is easily 
mastered in childhood, but seldom to be learned 
in middle life, and never in old age. 

"When I was a boy," says another author, 
"I was consoled for cutting my finger by hav- 
ing my attention called to the fact that I had 
not broken my arm ; and when I got a cinder in 
my eye, I was expected to feel more comfort- 

52 



Training toward Sunshine 53 

able because my cousin had lost his eye by an 
accident." 

"I cannot but think," says John Lubbock, 
"that the world would be better and brighter if 
our teachers would dwell on the duty of happi- 
ness as well as on the happiness of duty." 

The future child will be taught how to neu- 
traUze all his happiness enemies, such as fear, 
worry, anxiety, jealousy, envy, selfishness. He 
will be taught that nothing will change a lovely 
character to one that is hideous, a sweet to a 
sour one as quickly as the habit of holding 
hateful, revengeful, envious thoughts; that he 
cannot develop a lovable disposition while hold- 
ing uncharitable thoughts. 

Future instructors will know how to teach 
the science of brain-building; how to prevent 
and remedy weaknesses, one-sidedness, peculi- 
arities, idiosyncrasies; how to neutralize the 
enemies of success and happiness and how to 
strengthen the weaknesses and to eliminate the 
obstacles which now handicap so many lives. 

I understand that Dr. Paul Valentine has 
started a school of happiness in London. 
There is certainly nothing else in this world 



54 The Joys of Living 

that is more needed than the training of peo- 
ple, and especially children, in the art of hap- 
piness, the art which every human being is 
trying to practice. But what terrible botches 
most of us make of this art ! 

If people were properly trained from in- 
fancy, it would be as easy for them to be happy 
as it is now to be unhappy. 

It is just as simple to train the mind of a 
child towards happiness, to teach a child to 
look towards the sunny side of life, as it is to 
train it towards the dark and gloomy side. 

The time will come when the child will be 
trained from the cradle to the grave to the 
habit of happiness. His mind will be so 
trained that happiness will be as natural to him 
as his breath. It will not be regarded as a side 
issue in life, but as one of the main objects 
because one's whole welfare is so seriously 
affected by it. In the future the child will 
be shown that his efficiency, his success in life, 
his longevity, his influence, his power in the 
world, will be very largely dependent upon 
his happiness, his mental harmony. 

The parents of the future will know how to 



kU 



Training toward Sunshine 55 

train the brain so symmetrically by strength- 
ening the deficient faculties and developing 
weak qualities, that the mind will become 
poised, and a symmetrically trained mind will 
produce happiness, just as a perfectly ad- 
justed chronometer will produce good time. 

The first duty we owe a child is to teach him 
to fling out his inborn gladness and joy with 
the same freedom and abandon as the bobohnk 
does when it makes the meadow joyous with 
its song. Suppression of the fun-loving 
nature of a child means the suppression of its 
mental and moral faculties. Joy will go out 
of the heart of a child after a while if he is con- 
tinually suppressed. Mothers who are con- 
stantly cautioning the little ones not to do this 
or not to do that, telling them not to laugh or 
make a noise, until they lose their naturalness 
and become little old men and women, do not 
realize the harm they are doing. 

The children should be kept strangers to 
anxious care, reflective thoughts, and sub- 
jective moods. Their lives should be kept 
light, bright, buoyant, cheerful, full of sun- 
shine, joy, and gladness. They should be 



56 The Joys of Living 

encouraged to laugh and to pla}^ and to romp 
to their heart's content. The serious side of 
life will come only too quickly, do what we 
may to prolong childhood. We see these sad, 
melancholy faces everywhere, without a trace 
of joy, without a sign of gladness. A joyless 
childhood is one of the great causes of early 
aging. Youth must be carried along with 
the years, or they will be dry and sear, 
parched. It is the juices of youth, the joy 
and gladness carried along through the busy 
years that make old age tolerable. 

An eminent writer says, "Children without 
hilarity will never amount to much. Trees 
without blossoms will never bear fruit." 

Play is as necessary to the perfect develop- 
ment of a child as sunshine is to the perfect 
development of a plant. The childhood that 
has no budding and flowering, or only a par- 
tial unfolding of its petals, will have nothing 
but gnarled and pinched fruitage. The neces- 
sity for play in the very beginning of a child's 
development is shown by the fact that the in- 
stinct to play is so strong in all young life, 
including the entire animal kingdom. 



Training toward Sunshine 57 

A happy childhood is an imperative prepa- 
ration for a happy maturity. The disposi- 
tion, the cast of mind, the whole life tenden- 
cies are fixed in childhood. An early habit of 
cheerfulness — the fun-loving habit — has a 
powerful influence over the mature man and 
his career. 

The child that has been trained to be happy, 
that has been allowed free expression to his 
fun-loving nature, will not have a sad or 
gloomy disposition. Much of the morbid 
mentality which we see everywhere is due to 
stifled childhood. 

The very fact that the instinct to play, that 
the love of fun is so imperious in the child, 
shows a great necessity in his nature which, if 
suppressed, will leave a famine in his life. 

A sunny, joyous, happy childhood is to the 
individual what a rich soil and genial sun are 
to the young plant. If the early conditions 
are not favorable, the plant starves and be- 
comes stunted, and the results cannot be cor- 
rected in the later tree. It is now or never 
with the plant. This is true with the human 
plant also. A starved, suppressed, stunted 



58 The Joys of Living 

childhood makes a dwarfed man. A joyful, 
happy, fun-loving environment develops pow- 
ers, resources, and possibilities which would 
remain latent in a cold, dull, repressing atmos- 
phere. 

Everywhere we see men and women discon- 
tented and unhappy, because there was no 
play in their early lives, and when the young 
clay had hardened it would not respond to a 
larger environment. 

Can anything be more incongruous on this 
glorious, glad earth, than the picture of a 
worrying child, a child with a sad face, a 
human rosebud bhghted before it has a chance 
to open up its petals, and fling out its beauty 
and fragrance? 

Somebody has sinned and is responsible for 
this blight, this blasting of promise, this chill- 
ing of hope, this strangling of possibility. 

Childhood should be sunny. Clouds do not 
belong to childhood. Joy, beauty, exuber- 
ance, enthusiasm, buoyancy, belong to child- 
hood. A sad, worrying child, a child who has 
no childhood, is a disgrace to civilization. 

Let the children give vent to all that is joy- 



Training toward Sunshine 59 

ous and happy in their natures, and they will 
blossom out into helpful men and women in- 
stead of sedate, suppressed, sad, melancholy 
natures. Spontaneity, buoyancy, the bub- 
bling over of animal spirits are worth every- 
thing in one's education. Children who are 
encouraged in self-expression of their play in- 
stinct will make better business men, better 
professional men, better men and better 
women in any walk of life. They will suc- 
ceed better and have a better influence in the 
world than those who are repressed. 

Many people think it is undignified to give 
full vent to their fun-loving instincts. They 
think they must be thoughtful, sober-minded, 
very dignified, if they would carry any weight 
in the world, and not be regarded as light- 
headed and frivolous. We have all seen peo- 
ple who go about with their finger on their lips, 
figuratively speaking, as though they feared 
they might laugh out loud or say something 
funny. 

Oh, the satisfaction of beginning early in 
life to cultivate the finer qualities of the soul, 
the heart, the eye and the ear; to develop the 



60 The Joys of Living 

finer sentiments and the more delicate power 
of appreciation! 

If you are so trained you will be able to 
make poetry out of the prosiest life, bring 
sunshine to the darkest home, and develop 
beauty and grace amid the ugliest surround- 
ings. 

There is almost no limit to the possibilities 
of enriching life, ennobling, beautifying one's 
personality, by the proper cultivation of the 
cheerful faculties in early life. 

If all children were taught the philosophy 
of joy, there would be comparatively little 
unhappiness, sickness, or crime. We seem to 
think that it is very necessary to train the mind 
in business principles, to train certain faculties 
to do special things, but that it is not neces- 
sary to train the cheerful faculties. 

Yet not even an education is as necessary 
to the child as the formation of the cheerful 
habit. This ought to be regarded as the first 
essential of the preparation for life — the train- 
ing of the mind towards sunshine, developing 
every possibility of the cheerful faculties. 



RICHES AND HAPPINESS 

Every mind seems capable of entertaining a certain quantity 
of Happiness, which no institutions can increase, no circum- 
stances alter, and entirely independent of Fortune. Let any 
man compare his present fortune with the past, and he will 
probably find himself, upon the whole, neither better nor worse 
than formerly. — Goldsmith. 

The youth should be so trained in the sci- 
ence of happiness as to be able to say to a man 
who has millions of dollars but very little else 
— ''/ have set my face towards making a suc- 
cess of life J not merely a success of dollars. If 
any one can get more out of life than I can he 
is welcome to it." 

What a misfortune to the world, if wealth 
could produce the happiness which most people 
think it can! If wealth were essential, if a 
man had to be rich to be happy, the wealthy 
would always be happy and the poor unhappy. 

But riches alone do not make men happy or 
blessed. Money, to make a man happy, must 
serve his higher nature, the development of the 
good in him or in others, and not pander to 

61 



62 The Joys of Living 

anything which tends to bring out the mere 
animal in him. Wealth in the hands of igno- 
ramuses, in the hands of people with coarse 
tastes and low ideals, does not contribute to 
real happiness. The brute qualities lead away 
from happiness. No one can be really happy 
who does not have a high ideal and a grand 
life purpose. 

Most people are deluded with the idea that 
happiness consists in gratifying desires. They 
do not realize that "desire is as insatiable as 
the ocean, and clamors louder and louder as 
its demands are attended to." "There is no 
satiety in riches," said a Ex)man philosopher. 

Gratification, satisfaction of our selfish 
cravings, only increases our real soul-hunger. 
Principle alone can give permanent happiness ; 
material things are ever changing, ever elu- 
sive; there is no permanency, no endurance in 
them. 

One of the greatest disappointments of 
many rich men is that they have not been able 
to purchase happiness with money. The pow- 
erlessness of money to purchase happiness has 
disappointed more human beings than almost 



Riches and Happiness 63 

anything else. People who seek happiness in 
money are in the position of a man seeking 
safety on a floating piece of ice, which is drift- 
ing with certainty toward the open sea. What 
money can buy only satisfies a small part of an 
immortal being. He cannot feed upon bread 
alone. 

We all know people who have never amassed 
riches but who have built up a magnificent bul- 
wark of character, a superb personality; who 
have never won millions but have become mil- 
lionaires of character, have accumulated un- 
told riches in priceless friendships, and have 
been enshrined in a multitude of loving hearts. 

They are not rich in money but rich in the 
things that are worth while, in things which 
money will not buy. They have enriched hun- 
dreds of other lives by their encouragement, 
inspiration, their uplifting and ennobling in- 
fluence. 

To be rich in money and poverty-stricken in 
everything else is to be poor indeed. 

**Money never yet made a man happy," said 
Franklin; "and there is nothing in its nature to 
produce happiness." 



64 The Joys of Living 

There are rich men in our large cities who 
are conspicuously noted for the absence of 
their names from among those connected with 
all worthy objects — ^men who seldom give to 
the poor, who never lend a hand to worthy 
causes. They take no interest in politics, have 
no public spirit, belong to no organizations 
whose object is to help humanity. 

They are entirely and completely wrapped 
up in themselves. They do not see why they 
should spend their money for other than their 
pleasure or that of their famihes. The result 
is that they become so hardened and greedy 
that they are not missed when they have 
passed away. 

Is it not strange that when we have had so 
many experiences with the things that make 
us happy — such as good hard work, a right 
aim, kindness and helpfulness to others, 
courtesy, consideration, and appreciation — 
that we put so much emphasis on mere money 
wealth, and do not cultivate these things which 
give us such a feeling of satisfaction? 

I know of a wealthy man who, when asked 
what deed of his life had given him the great- 



Riches and Happiness 65 

est happiness, replied that it was paying a 
mortgage off a poor woman's home, which was 
being sold over her head. The probabilities 
are that this man had expected to find infi- 
nitely greater happiness in money-making, in 
trying to manufacture and sell more goods 
than his competitors, but in helping to save 
the home of a poor woman he had gained 
greater joy and satisfaction than in any ex- 
perience of his business career. 

Some of the richest minds I have ever met 
have belonged to people who had very little 
of this world's goods. But they had wealth 
which no money can buy, no envy purchase. 

After George M. Pullman became a multi- 
millionaire, he testified: "I am not an iota 
happier now than I was in the days when I had 
not a dollar in the world I could call my own, 
save that which I worked for from sunny morn 
to dewy eve. I believe I was as happy, if not 
much happier, when poor." 

"Riches are all vanity and vexation of 
spirit," said Russell Sage. 

Men of such vast fortunes ought to be au- 
thority on this question; and yet the great 



66 The Joys of Living 

struggle of the thousands is to acquire riches. 

Why should the fact that other people have 
more than I, take the value out of what I have? 
Why should I enjoy mine less because some- 
body else has more? Why should I depreciate 
myself and bow and scrape to the people who 
have managed to rake together a huge pile of 
vulgar dollars. Is the dollar the measure of 
the things that are worth while? Is the dollar 
pile greater than the man? There should be 
something finer and richer and of infinitely 
greater value inside of a man than any of the 
material things that he can pile up about him- 
self. 

If we concentrate upon greed, if our mental 
attitude is always fixed upon the money-mak- 
ing game, and our own selfish interests, there 
is nothing in our thoughts to make happiness 
ours. 

Money-madness first becomes a habit and 
then a disease, almost as dangerous as the mor- 
phine or drug habit. The opium fiend loses 
his sense of moral obligation, loses his appre- 
ciation of truth and of duty, and develops a 



Riches and Happiness 67 

marvelous cunning for procuring that which 
will satisfy his drug craving; just so the 
money-germ disease tends to kill one's sense of 
obligation to his fellow-men, develops a colos- 
sal selfishness and brutal greed, which are ab- 
normal. 

Human beings starve and pinch their lives 
and stunt their growth by their wrong atti- 
tudes toward life. They kill every joy and 
blight their happiness by their own envy, jeal- 
ousy and false ambition. The sight of other 
people's prosperity seems to kill their appreci- 
ation and the enjoyment of their possessions. 

To be happy, we must approve of ourselves ; 
and there is something within us which always 
condemns the selfish act, as it does the sinful 
act. I have never known a greedy, grasping, 
selfish person to be happy. Where these pro- 
pensities dominate in the nature, it is impossi- 
ble for the things which create love to live. 
These rank, vulgar weeds kill the more tender 
plants and flowers which radiate sweetness and 
beauty, contentment and happiness. The two 
kinds of plants cannot thrive together. 



The Joys of Living 



There is only one kind of happiness worth 
while and that is the happiness which has no 
reaction, which leaves no sting behind. The 
gratification of selfish desires gives a fatal re- 
action. It is easy to destroy one's capacity for 
the higher sort of happiness. 

Most people exaggerate the value of mere 
money wealth. It does not compare with the 
value of a contented mind, a refined, cheerful 
personality. While there are very many de- 
sirable things about riches, they are full of 
temptations, especially for the weak, the su- 
perficial, the vain character. Wealth brings a 
great many enemies with it, enemies which 
tempt us to do a great many things which are 
not for our best interest and which deteriorate 
our health and demoralize our character. 

Emerson says, if you own land, the land 
owns you. Property always means absorption 
of time and energy. Increased wealth brings 
many new obligations, furnishes temptations 
of indulgence in ease, in "good times," in all 
sorts of pleasures, in the gratification of the 
senses and desires. Great wealth is an enemy 
of the simple life, and we are so constituted 



Riches and Happiness 69 

that a complex life is not conducive to our best 
well-being or our greatest happiness. 

One of the worst doctrines ever set afloat is 
that real happiness is in material things in- 
stead of in a condition of mind. In our igno- 
rance, we ruin our ability for real mental bliss 
in our pursuit of the material things which we 
believe are going to solve our problems and 
make us happy. The more a man has, the 
more he wants. Instead of filhng a vacuum, 
it makes one. A great bank account can 
never make a man rich. It is the mind that 
makes the body rich. No man is rich, how- 
ever much money or land he may possess, who 
has a poor heart. 

It is as impossible for selfishness to taste the 
quality of the highest happiness, as it is for 
a blind man to appreciate the glories of a sun- 
set. 

Is it not a strange thing that a man who has 
been selfish and mean and cowardly and dis- 
honest in getting his money; a man who has 
taken advantage of those who helped him to 
make his fortune, who has crushed their op- 
portunities, killed their chance, blighted their 



70 The Joys of Living 

prospects ; instead of letting them rise to inde- 
pendence, has made them his slaves; is it not 
strange that a man who has acquired his pile 
by such despicable methods, should expect to 
be happy? 

The most unhappy people I know build 
their own purgatory by their false ideas of life, 
by putting the wrong emphasis on things, by 
setting the wrong value on things. The most 
pernicious idea that ever entered a mortal's 
brain is that the gratification of selfish desires 
will make a man happy. 

If a man could get away from the pattern 
which was shown him in the mount of his 
highest moment; if he could tear out of his 
being the image of his Maker altogether, and 
eliminate everything in him that aspires, looks 
up, that reaches up; if he could eliminate 
everything but the brute part of himself, then 
he could have the brute's enjoyment, but not 
the man's. And this is the only happiness 
possible to many a millionaire, — he can simply 
have the enjoyment which comes from the in- 
dulgence of the animal appetite ; he cannot en- 
joy anything higher until he develops the 



Riches and Happiness 71 

higher faculties, which can appreciate the 
higher quahty of enjoyment. 

A man can never realize complete, abiding 
happiness until he gets into the current run- 
ning Heavenward, Godward, because every- 
thing on a material plain is transitory and in 
constant change. There is nothing perma- 
nent, nothing abiding, in that which material 
things can give. 

Robert Louis Stevenson appreciated the 
great impediment of material things to man's 
soul-flight heavenward. He once telegraphed 
his congratulations to a friend whose house 
was burned down, because the wife of his 
friend had been driven to distraction with an 
army of servants and with the management of 
the great estabhshment. 

Money means to many people the unre- 
strained gratification of their animal desires. 
They seem to think that if they only get money 
enough so that they can have perfect freedom 
to gratify all their desires, they will be per- 
fectly happy. But they find that the money 
often brings the thorns to torment its posses- 
sor. 



72 The Joys of Living 

There are multitudes of rich men to-day 
who are resorting to all sorts of schemes to 
drown the rebuking, reproving voice within 
them which condemns their acts. They are 
trying to get happiness out of a fortune which 
they have gotten in questionable ways, and 
they cannot understand why money and influ- 
ence will not buy that peace of mind, that com- 
fort and satisfaction, that mental serenity and 
peaceful existence which they dreamed of ob- 
taining. 

The man with the ill-gotten fortune may 
found colleges, build hospitals, feed and clothe 
the poor, and yet never find the happiness 
which has been the quest of his whole career. 

Happiness can no more be bought than love 
or respect can be bought. Some of the most 
wretchedly unhappy people I know of are 
spending money on every hand, trjang to pur- 
chase that ideal happiness which can only come 
from right living, from a straight, clean life. 

A false ambition, an over-vaulting passion 
to get ahead of others, cannot produce satis- 
faction. We inwardly despise ourselves for 
being selfish, trying to snatch things away 



Riches and Happiness 73 

from others to get a little more for ourselves. 
We condemn ourselves for trying to keep 
others back, for taking unfair advantage of 
them, even if we do get dividends out of their 
misfortune. We know it is not right and there 
is something within us which reproaches us for 
it. No man can be really happy who is not a 
man, who does not do the things which he 
would sanction and admire in another. If 
you do a thing which you would think less of 
another for doing, you will think less of your- 
self, and you cannot be happy without your 
own sanction. 

The greatest aim of life should be to ab- 
sorb into one's being the largest amount of 
sweetness and beauty it is capable of absorb- 
ing. The highest riches are beyond the reach 
of money, and are independent of fortune. 
They cannot be burned up, or lost in the 
ocean, or destroyed in a railroad wreck. 

What is more common than to see men and 
women starve the soul, and paralyze the 
growth and expansion of the finer sentiments, 
which alone make life worth living, for the sake 
of the coarser pleasures of the senses, or in 



74 The Joys of Living 

order to pile up material wealth, the effect of 
which is, as a rule, to draw us farther and 
farther away from the life of the spirit? A 
few acres of dirt, a row of buildings, a palace 
to live in, a few stocks and bonds, a little silver 
plate and fine furnishings, good clothes, are, 
after all, pretty poor sort of things to satisfy 
the longings of an immortal soul. 

There are hundreds of wealthy homes in this 
country in which one will not find a single in- 
spiring book, picture, or statue, or any work 
of art of spiritual significance, — anything, in 
short, that elevates the thoughts of its inhab- 
itants or touches their lives to finer issues. 
There is a great display of vulgar wealth, rich 
carpets and tapestries, and costly furniture, — 
a fortune in decorations, — ^but nothing what- 
ever to appeal to the spiritual qualities. 

In many a home of poverty we find more 
that inspires to noble living, that lifts life 
above the commonplace and the sordid, and 
that stirs the soul to higher flights, than in the 
mansions of some of our milMonaires. There 
are no costly paintings or tapestries, it is true, 
no priceless bric-a-brac, or crowding of useless 



Riches and Happiness 75 

ornaments, — perhaps not even carpets on the 
floors; but one sees a few well-worn volumes 
whose character reveals that of the owners, 
feels a sense of real refinement, and breathes 
in a spiritual atmosphere and an outflow of 
love and helpfulness that invest the humble 
dwelling with a beauty and charm mere 
money wealth cannot command. 

Beauty of soul, goodness of heart, and a 
cultivated spiritual nature are the furnishings 
that transform a hovel into a palace, and with- 
out which the most luxurious mansion is poor 
and tawdry and desolate. 

Recently an employee said to me: "I am 
only an ordinary mechanic and my employer 
talks as though I were a failure in life because 
I am not in business for myself, and haven't 
got rich. He tells me that anyhody with an 
ounce of brains and pluck ought to be able to 
make a fortune in this land of opportunity. 

**Now he and I have diff*erent ways of esti- 
mating what stands for success and happiness 
in life. There is what you may term succeed- 
ing in an undertaking; that is, winning out in 
your own narrow specialty and making money 



76 The Joys of Living 

out of it; and there is a success in life which 
means successful living all along the line, — 
that one has kept growing while getting ahead 
in his specialty, that he is a success in his per- 
sonality. 

"My employer looks down upon me, regards 
me as a nobody, because I cannot live in as 
fashionable a part of the city as he does, nor 
afford an automobile. My family do not 
dress as his family dresses. My children can- 
not associate with the same people. We do 
not belong to his social set. I am not invited 
to go on committees, on boards of directors, 
as this man is. And yet, when you come right 
down to brass tacks, I have personally a better 
standing in the estimation of my neighbors 
than my employer. He is looked upon as a 
shrewd, cunning, long-headed schemer. Peo- 
ple look up to his money, but not to him ; they 
bow and scrape to his fortune. 

"Now, to my mind, there is a great big dif- 
ference between raking together a lot of 
money and building up the man in you. I 

began to work for Mr. B as a boy on three 

dollars a week. It wasn't many years before 



Riches and Happiness 77 

I worked up to a master mechanic's position. 
I believe I have a greater respect for my occu- 
pation than he has for his. A beautiful piece 
of work, a well-done job, delights me as a 
superb painting delights an artist. But my 
employer seems to look upon his business 
merely as the most practicable means of piling 
up money. He is a natural money-grabber; 
but I think there is something infinitely better 
in life than money-grabbing." 

It is not the possession of money that con- 
stitutes wealth, that gives the highest satisfac- 
tion, and awakens the consciousness of noble 
achievement, the assurance that one is fulfill- 
ing his mission, and that he is reading aright 
the sealed message which the Creator placed in 
his hand at birth. 

Only soul wealth, generous disinterested- 
ness, the love that seeks not its own, and hands 
that help and hearts that sympathize consti- 
tute true riches and fill the possessor with the 
joy of one who knows that he is fulfilling the 
real purpose of his life. 

Time and again, I have traveled a long dis- 
tance to visit a very humble home in Ames- 



78 The Joys of Living 

bury, Massachusetts. The whole property is 
worth but a few hundred dollars, but the fact 
that John Greenleaf Whittier lived there has 
given it an absolutely priceless value. Men 
and women cross continents and oceans to 
visit it. Enthusiastic admirers of the poet 
carry away from the spot bits of wood, wild 
flowers, leaves and all sorts of souvenirs to 
remind them and those who come after them 
that a man lived there, — one of nature's noble- 
men. 

Thousands of people in this country look 
upon Whittier, the simple poet, as one of the 
richest treasures America has produced, and 
yet, considered from a commercial standpoint, 
all he left in the world was worth but a song. 

Be careful how you laugh at men and 
women who think there is something better in 
the world than making money, and who refuse 
to worship it. Their monuments in parks 
and public places may proclaim the story of 
their heroic lives for centuries, after you with 
your millions have been forgotten. Selfish- 
ness has no immortaUty in it. Greed has no 
quality to propagate itself, its children are all 



Riches and Happiness 79 

short-lived. Who ever saw people making 
pilgrimages to the homes of milHonaires, men 
who never did anything for the world? Who 
would insult the memory of Whittier by ask- 
ing if he were rich? Who would desecrate the 
name of Lincoln by asking how much money 
he left, or who would dare say that he was not 
a success because he was poor? Hundreds 
of men and women have lived and died in 
wretched homes, in attics, and even in poor- 
houses who have enriched the world by their 
lives, who have given greater uplift to civiliza- 
tion, and brought more happiness into the 
world, than many a millionaire. Men who 
never had a thousand dollars have left names 
which the world will not let die. 

Do you regard a man as really poor who 
may not happen to have money, but whose 
character is so exuberant and whose career is 
so succulent with the sweet things of life and 
experience that he has enriched and made 
happy a whole community? Do you regard 
a man as poor whose neighbors feel enriched 
by his mere presence? Do you regard a man 
as poor who lives in an attic, but whose very 



80 The Joys of Living 

existence enhances the value of every acre of 
land and every home for miles around him? 
Do you regard a man as poor when every 
child in his neighborhood loves him and con- 
siders it an honor to be recognized by him on 
the street or to receive an invitation to visit 
him? Do you regard a man as poor when his 
home, no matter how humble, is looked upon 
as a shrine? 

To be engulfed in one's occupation, swal- 
lowed up in a complicated life, harassed by the 
striving and straining, the worry and anxiety 
which accompany a vast fortune, is not to be 
rich. It is the consummate selfishness of man- 
kind that places such a tremendous emphasis 
upon money and what money will do. There 
should be some higher motive. Time and 
opportunity and inclination to help others and 
to bring happiness into their lives, are the most 
valuable things in the world, and if you cannot 
seize these, if you cannot utilize them to your 
own enlargement, your own betterment, you 
are poor indeed, and can never know the joy 
and satisfaction of true living although you 
may have millions of dollars. 



VI 

ENJOYING WITHOUT OWNING 

"What hath the owner but the sight of it with his eyes?" 

A French marquis, with whom Washing- 
ton Irving has made us acquainted, consoled 
himself for the loss of his chateau by remark- 
ing that he had Versailles and St. Cloud for 
his country resorts, and the shady alleys of 
the Tuileries and the Luxembourg for his 
town recreation. 

"When I walk through these fine gardens," 
he said, "I have only to fancy myself the 
owner of them, and they are mine. All these 
gay crowds are my visitors, and I have not the 
trouble of entertaining them. My estate is a 
perfect Sans Souci, where every one does as he 
pleases, and no one troubles the owner. All 
Paris is my theater, and presents me mth a 
continual spectacle. I have a table spread for 
me in every street, and thousands of waiters 
ready to fly at my bidding. When my serv- 
ants have waited upon me, I pay them, dis- 

U 



82 The Joys of Livestg 

charge them, and there's an end. I have no 
fears of their wronging or pilfering me when 
my back is turned. Upon the whole," said the 
old gentleman with a smile of infinite good 
humor, "when I recollect all that I have suf- 
fered, and consider all I at present enjoy, I 
can but look upon myself as a person of sin- 
gular good fortune." 

The habit of feeling rich because you have 
developed the faculty of extracting wealth 
from everything you touch is riches indeed. 
Why should we not feel rich in all that our 
eyes can carry away, no matter if others hap- 
pen to have the title-deed? Why should I not 
enjoy the beautiful gardens of the wealthy 
and their grounds, just as if I owned them? 
As I pass by I can make the wealth of color 
my own. The beauty of plants, and lawn, 
and flowers, and trees are all mine. The title- 
deed of another does not cut off my esthetic 
ownership. The best part of the farm, the 
landscape, the beauty of the brook and the 
meadow, the slope of the valley, the song of 
the birds, the sunset, cannot be shut up within 
any title-deed; they belong to the eye that can 



Enjoying without Owning 83 

carry them away, the mind that can appreciate 
them. 

How is it that some rare characters manage 
to have such precious treasures, to get so 
much that enriches the hfe out of a poverty- 
stricken, forbidding environment, while others 
get httle out of the most luxurious and beauti- 
ful conditions that wealth can furnish? 

It is wholly a question of the quality of the 
absorbent material. Some people are blind to 
beauty. They can travel with the utmost in- 
difference in the midst of the most gorgeous 
and inspiring scenery. Their souls are not 
touched. They do not feel the inspiration 
which puts others into ecstasy. 

There is a story told of a touring party in 
the Alps which included a lady and a phleg- 
matic German. The guide led the party to a 
point where a sudden turn revealed a marvel- 
ous panorama of beauty. The lady went first 
and gazing on the prospect said, "How charm- 
ing!" The German, following, fell on his 
knees and, baring his head, cried, "Ach, mein 
Gott! I thank thee that I have lived to see 
this day!" 



84 The Joys of Living 

"If you are not wealthy yourself, be glad 
that somebody else is, and you will be aston- 
ished at the happiness that will result to your- 
self," says the Rev. Dr. Charles F. Aked. 

Did you ever realize, my poor complaining 
friend, how rich you really are? You say you 
have no land, no home of your own; that you 
are only living with your family in a few 
rooms. Of what a lot of pleasure envy robs 
us! It is a small soul that cannot enjoy what 
he does not own, that goes through life allow- 
ing his envy to rob him. We ought to be able 
to enjoy everything that is enjoyable, no 
matter who owns it. How foolish to envy 
others the things which we do not happen to 
have or cannot afford! Always learn to en- 
joy what you cannot own. Be like the birds, 
who do not care who holds the title deed to the 
lands where, in their migrations, they joy- 
ously build their little homes. 

Did you ever stop to think how small a part 
of the community really belongs to the indi- 
vidual? The streets, the roads, are free; the 
parks are yours; the public libraries are as 
much yours as the rich man's; the schools are 



Enjoying without Owning 85 

yours; the rivers, the brooks, the mountains, 
the sunsets, the marvelous mysteries and beau- 
ties of the heavens are yours. Mr. Rocke- 
feller cannot get more out of the sun than you 
can, or from the beauty of the moon ; the stars 
are as much yours as his. The charms of 
nature, the change of seasons, the joys the 
Creator has reflected everywhere, are yours. 
The landscape belongs to you just as much 
as to the man who pays the taxes on the 
land. 

Think of the fortune it costs a great city to 
keep up the parks! Even the estate of a 
Carnegie could not afford such grounds, and 
you are sure of always finding them in the fin- 
est condition without a thought of care your- 
self or a bit of anxiety. The people who care 
for all these things are public servants, giving 
their service for you as much as for the richest. 
You do not have to hire them, watch them, or 
pay them; no anxiety robs you of your enjoy- 
ment. The flowers, the birds, the statuary, 
all of the beautiful things in our great parks, 
are as much yours as they are the property of 
the richest. Why, the poorest people in our 



86 The Joys of Living 

cities are landed proprietors; they own thou- 
sands of acres of land! 

The trouble with us is that we exaggerate 
the great advantage of having much property. 
The fact is that the human mind is not con- 
structed for either the appreciation or the en- 
joyment of a great many things, and a com- 
plicated existence defeats its own ends. "I 
would rather be able to appreciate things I 
cannot have than to have things I am not able 
to appreciate," said a writer. 

Robert Louis Stevenson once packed up his 
pictures and his furniture and sent them to an 
enemy who was about to be married, and he 
wrote to a friend that he had at last rid him- 
self of the master to whom he had been a bond 
slave. "Don't," he said, "give hostages to for- 
tune, I implore you. Not once a month will 
you be in a mood to enjoy a picture. When 
that mood comes, go to the gallery and see it. 
Meanwhile let some hired flunkey dust the pic- 
ture and keep it in good condition for your 
coming." 

Why should I scramble and struggle to get 
possession of a little portion of this earth? 



Enjoying without Owning 87 

This is my world now; why should I envy 
others its mere legal possession? It belongs 
to him who can see it, enjoy it. I need not 
envy the so-called owners of estates in Boston 
and New York. They are merely taking care 
of my property and keeping it in excellent 
condition for me. For a few pennies for rail- 
road fare whenever I wish I can see and 
possess the best of it all. It has cost me no 
effort, it gives me no care; yet the green grass, 
the shrubbery, and the statues on the lawns, 
the finer sculptures and the paintings within, 
are always ready for me whenever I feel a de- 
sire to look upon them. I do not wish to 
carry them home with me, for I could not give 
them half the care they now receive ; besides, it 
would take too much of my valuable time, and 
I should be worrying continually lest they be 
spoiled or stolen. I have much of the wealth 
of the world now. It is all prepared for me 
without any pains on my part. All the peo- 
ple around me are working hard to get things 
that will please me, and competing to see who 
can give them the cheapest. The little I pay 
for the use of libraries, railroads, galleries, 



88 The Joys of Living 

parks, is less than it would cost to care for the 
least of all I use. Life and landscape are 
mine, the stars and flowers, the sea and air, 
the birds and trees. What more do I want? 
All the ages have been working for me; all 
mankind are my servants. I am only re- 
quired to feed and clothe myself, an easy task 
in this land of opportunity. 

Some people are so constituted that they do 
not need to own things to enjoy them. There 
is no envy in their nature. They feel glad 
that others have money and a splendid home, 
even if they themselves live in poverty. 
Henry Ward Beecher had this broad, liberal, 
magnanimous, whole-hearted nature, which 
could enjoy without owning. He used to say 
that it was a great treat to him to go out and 
enjoy the good things in the shop windows, 
especially during the Christmas holidays, and 
he could make the architecture and sculpture 
of palatial homes his own and enjoy the 
grounds, no matter who had the title-deed to 
them. 

Phillips Brooks, Thoreau, Garrison, Emer- 
son, Beecher, Agassiz, were rich without 



Enjoying without Owning 89 

money. They saw the splendor in the flower, 
the glory in the grass, books in the running 
brooks, sermons in stones, and good in every- 
thing. They knew that the man who owns 
the landscape is seldom the one who pays the 
taxes on it. They sucked in power and wealth 
at first hand from the meadows, fields, and 
flowers, birds, brooks, mountains, and forest, 
as the bee sucks honey from the flowers. 
Every natural object seemed to bring them a 
special message from the great Author of the 
beautiful. To these rare souls every natural 
object was touched with power and beauty; 
and their thirsty souls drank it in as a traveler 
on a desert drinks in the god-sent water of the 
oasis. To extract power and real wealth 
from men and things seemed to be their mis- 
sion, and to pour it out again in refreshing 
showers upon a thirsty humanity. 

Did you ever watch a bee flitting about 
gathering delicious honey from the most for- 
bidding and unattractive sources? I know 
men and women who have, superbly developed, 
this marvelous instinct for gathering honey 
from all sorts of sources. They extract it 



90 The Joys of Living 

from the most repellent surroundings. They 
cannot talk with the poorest, meanest, most 
unfortunate specimen of humanity without 
getting that which will sweeten the life and en- 
rich the experience. 

This ability to extract enjoyment from all 
sorts of sources is a divine gift. It broadens 
the life, deepens the experience, and enriches 
the whole nature. It is a great force in self- 
culture. 

The secret of happiness is in a cheerful, 
contented mind. "He is poor who is dissatis- 
jSed; he is rich who is contented with what he 
has," and can enjoy what others own. 

"Our eyes oft look above to find life's prize. 
Whereas, when wisdom's years have made us wise. 
We see it at our feet in that same way 
We careless passed along but yesterday." 

"There are joys which long to be ours. 
God sends ten thousand truths, which come 
about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are 
shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, 
but sit and sing a while upon the roof and then 
fly away." 



VII 

THE SIN OF TIRED NERVES 

The kindest and the happiest pair 
Will find occasion to forbear; 
And something every day they live 
To pity and perhaps forgive. 

COWPER. 

A GREAT many well-meaning people, botH 
men and women, are great "nerve sinners." 
They allow themselves to become exhausted 
and so depleted physically that they lose the 
power of resistance. They cannot control 
themselves and are the victims of their nerves. 

There are tens of thousands of women in 
this country who, much of the time, are in a 
chronic state of fatigue, and who seldom ever 
get rested. Many of them do not get sleep 
enough, are constantly interrupted by the chil- 
dren, and their great load of mental care, to- 
gether with their hard work and monotonous 
lives, are enough to wreck the health and ruin 
the disposition of all but women of extraordi- 
nary poise and strength of mind and body, 

91 



92 The Joys of Living 

Men who have their regular hours of work 
and are then free, little realize what it means 
for their wives to work nearly twice as long 
as they do, and often with a great many more 
things to irritate them. Most women would 
be cheerful and kind if they lived perfectly 
sane lives. Most men would be nervous 
wrecks in three months if they were to ex- 
change places with their wives. 

Women often get extremely nervous, and 
their husbands blame them for their irritabil- 
ity, when the whole trouble is the result of 
mental and muscular fatigue, which may be 
caused by long hours of work, the monotony 
of their lives, and the presence of all sorts of 
vexations which tend to keep them in a con- 
stant state of semi-exhaustion. 

The friction in many unhappy homes is 
largely caused by overwrought, tired nerves. 
A large part of the mental suffering which 
many of us cause is wholly without intention. 
The cutting things we say, our criticism, our 
unkindness often come from kindly hearts but 
irritated nerves. We say cruel things even to 
our best friends and those we love best when 



The Sin of Tired Nerves 93 

our nerves are on edge from fret and worry; 
things we would not have said for the world 
but for the irritation, the sheer exhaustion, that 
robbed us of self-control. 

How many people carry cruel wounds for 
years, perhaps for a lifetime, which were 
thoughtlessly inflicted by a dear friend in a 
moment of anger when their physical stand- 
ards were down! How often we hurt those 
whom we love dearly and whom we would help, 
when we are tired and jaded and things fret 
us! 

The sins of exhausted nerves, caused by 
vitiated blood or cell poisoning through lack 
of proper exercise or recreation, loss of sleep, 
or vicious thinking, are responsible for much of 
the world's misery and failure. 

Take for example a man who is suffering 
from insomnia. Hard times and financial 
panics may have completely demoralized his 
business; and being of a highly organized, 
nervous, sensitive temperament, accustomed 
to worry even when comparatively well, he is 
completely upset when his physical vitality is 
at a low ebb. His powers of resistance have 



94 The Joys of Living 

become so reduced that his will power is per- 
fectly helpless to master the situation, and he 
then becomes the victim of all sorts of trifling 
annoyances which when normal he would not 
have noticed. He is unreasonable with his 
employees, cruel to those dependent upon him, 
and he says things for which he afterwards de- 
spises himself. In other words, the brute in 
him has usurped the throne and rules, while he 
finds himself the slave to passions which he has 
been trying all his life to conquer. 

There is only one thing to do when you are 
not sure you can control your acts; that is, to 
stop whatever you are doing, retire to some 
quiet place, get out of doors, if possible, or get 
by yourself for a few minutes — long enough 
to restore your balance, get your bearings, as- 
sert your manhood. 

The sunlight is as necessary for happiness 
as it is for peaches. Many a worried, dis- 
couraged, melancholy, despondent person 
would become vigorous and happy by merely 
getting out into the sunshine. 

The victims of tired nerves should be very 
regular in their habits and take special care of 



The Sin of Tired Nerves 95 

their health. They should eat foods which will 
nourish the nerves. 

There is nothing which will take the place 
of a great deal of outdoor exercise and a cheer- 
ful, harmonious environment. Worry, anx- 
iety, and fear in all its phases are deadly 
enemies of the nerves. So is overwork. 

Not long ago I had a letter from a rising 
young lawyer who is suffering from a com- 
plete nervous breakdown. He had, at the 
start, a strong constitution, but was so ambi- 
tious to make a name for himself that he had 
undermined it by working much of the time 
more than fifteen hours a day. He had the 
insane idea, which so many have, that the man 
who keeps everlastingly at it, sticks to his task 
year in and year out, has a great advantage 
over the one who works fewer hours and takes 
frequent vacations. He thought he could not 
afford to take frequent trips to the country, 
or even an occasional day off to play golf, as 
other young lawyers did ; that he must make a 
name for himself w^hile others were playing. 
So he kept on overdrawing his account at 
Nature's bank, and now he is going through 
physical bankruptcy. 



96 The Joys of Living 

Just when he should be in a position to do 
the greatest thing possible to him, when he 
should be most productive and vigorous, when 
his creative ability should be at its maximum, 
he is compelled, because of his mental break- 
down, to rehnquish his profession, perhaps 
forever. 

It was never intended that man should be a 
slave to his work, that he should exhaust all 
his energy in getting a living, and have prac- 
tically none left for making a life. The time 
will come when it will be generally acknowl- 
edged that it is possible to do more work, and 
of a better quality, in a much shorter day than 
our present average working day. "All work 
and no play makes Jack a dull boy." The 
fact that we have such a strong instinct for fun 
indicates that it was intended we should have 
a good deal of it in our lives. But a great 
number of employees are obliged to work too 
many hours a day, simply because their em- 
ployers have not yet learned the magic of a 
fresh brain and vigorous physique. 

No matter how healthy or capable a person 
may be, the brain cells and faculties which are 



The Sin of Tired Neeyes 97 

constantly used, like the bow which is always 
tightly strung, lose their elasticity, their grip 
and firmness, and become jaded, dull, and 
flabby. 

The brain that is continually exercised in 
one's occupation or profession, with little or 
no change, is not capable of the vigorous, spon- 
taneous action of the brain that gets frequent 
recreation and change. The man who keeps 
everlastingly at it, who has little fun or play 
in his life, usually gets into a rut early in his 
career, and shrivels and dries up for lack of 
variety, of mental food and stimulus. He de- 
stroys his capacity for happiness. Nothing is 
more beneficial to the mental or physical 
worker than frequent change — a fresh view- 
point. Everywhere we see men who have 
gone to seed early, become rutty and uninter- 
esting, because they worked too much and 
played too little. Monotony is a great shriv- 
eler of ability, and a blighter of happiness. 

The great majority of people do their work 
mechanically, and regard it as unavoidable 
drudgery, whereas all work should be a de- 
light, as it would be if all workers were in the 



98 The Joys of Living 

right place and worked only when they were 
fresh and vigorous. Then the exercise of 
brain and muscle would give a sense of well- 
being, and work would be a tonic, not a grind ; 
life a delight, not a struggle. Work, like re- 
ligion, "never was designed to make our 
pleasures less." Work is essential to health, 
every faculty, contributes to one's efficiency, 
gives a keener edge to all of one's sensibilities, 
and health is the foundation of happiness. 

It is a strange fact that many people cannot 
appreciate the infinite difference between 
working when the brain and muscles are up to 
the highest standard of efficiency and forcing 
them to work when they are fatigued. No 
one is himself when his nerve centers are ex- 
hausted, whether from excessive use or from 
lack of proper food. The quality of one's 
thought, ambition, energy, aims, and ideals, is 
largely a matter of health. 

Who can estimate the tragedies which have 
resulted from exhausted nerve cells? Many 
crimes are the result of abnormal physical con- 
ditions consequent upon exhaustion. Men do 
all sorts of strange, abnormal things to satisfy 



The Sin of Tired Neryes 99 

the call of these exhausted tissue cells for 
nourishment. They try to restore them by 
drink and other kinds of dissipation. 

If it were possible for the people of this 
country to follow the laws of health for six 
months, it would change the entire condition 
of our civihzation. The unhappiness, misery, 
and crime would be reduced immeasurably, 
and the general efBciency would increase mar- 
velously. Ignorance of the laws of health is 
responsible for a large part of the ills we 
suffer, and for discouragement and unhappi- 
ness. 

It seems strange that we should spend so 
much time and money learning about a hun- 
dred things which we shall never use prac- 
tically, but which are, of course, of great value 
as discipline, and almost wholly neglect to find 
out what we are ourselves. It is really an in- 
sult to the Creator, who has fashioned us so 
marvelously, that we should not spend as much 
time studying the physique which it has taken 
Him a quarter of a century or more to bring 
to maturity as we would spend upon a single 
dead language which we know we shall never 
use except indirectly. 



100 The Joys of Living 

I know a young lady who has very marked 
ability, and when she is in good health, and 
her spirits are up, she accomplishes wonders; 
but much of the time she is in poor health, and 
then her ambition is down, she is discouraged. 
The result is that she will probably never be 
able to bring out ten per cent, of her real 
ability, or to find the satisfaction her talents 
should warrant. 

Everywhere we see people doing little 
things, living mediocre lives, when they have 
the ability to do great things, to live grand 
lives, if they only could keep their health up 
to standard. 

The first requisite to success and happiness 
is good robust health. The brain gets a great 
deal of credit which belongs to the stomach 
and the muscles. Health is the fire of life 
which spurs us on to efforts which lead beyond 
mediocrity. Physical weaknesses of all kinds 
minimize our effort, belittle us, cripple us; no 
industry or will power can compensate for 
their evil effect. 

Vigorous, robust health doubles and quad- 
ruples the efficiency and power of every faculty 



The Sin of Tired Nerves 101 

and function. It tones up the human econ- 
omy; it clears the cobwebs from the brain, 
brushes off the brain-ash, improves the judg- 
ment, sharpens every faculty, increases the 
energy, freshens the cells in every tissue of the 
body. 

A person with a weak, half-developed 
physique, puny muscles, a low state of vital- 
ity, fractious nerves, cannot have that buoy- 
ancy of spirits which are the oJaTspring of 
robust health. 

The ambition partakes of the quality and 
the vigor of the mental faculties; and a brain 
that is fed by poisoned blood due to vitiated 
air, to overeating or bad eating, or to dissipa- 
tion, or a lack of vigorous outdoor exercise, 
can never do great things. It is pure blood 
that makes pure thought and wholesome en- 
joyment of life, and pure blood can only come 
from a clean life, strong, vigorous outdoor 
exercise, a great variety of mental food, and 
an abundance of sound sleep. 

We all know the advantage the man has 
who can radiate vigor, who has a robust 
physique. Great achievement is the child of 



102 ^ The Joys of Living 

a strong vitality. It can never come from a 
weak constitution or vitiated blood. 

What a sorry picture is a weak, puny, half- 
developed youth, starting out in the race for 
success, with an ambition to keep pace with his 
robust companions! What are his chances 
compared with those of the youth whose vital- 
ity and power emanate from every pore? 
How unfortunate to be thus handicapped on 
the very threshold of an active life! But oh, 
what a satisfaction to stand upon life's thresh- 
old, vigorous, fresh, hopeful, with the con- 
sciousness of physical energy and power, 
equal to any emergency — master of any situa- 
tion ! 

Abounding health not only increases self- 
confidence, but the confidence of others; and 
this confidence is credit, is power. With rare 
exceptions the great prizes of life fall to those 
who have stalwart, robust physiques. One 
who has health possesses the greatest magnet- 
making force and can compel success to come 
to his call. 

Robust health not only raises the power of 
and multiplies the entire brain power many 



The Sin of Tired Nerves 103 

times, but it also increases tremendously the 
power to enjoy life. 

In the last analysis happiness is located in 
the microscopic cells of the body and the in- 
tegrity of every one of these billions of tiny 
cells is essential for perfect happiness. Any- 
thing which interferes with this integrity, 
which causes discord, deterioration, poison, or 
pain, affects the well-being, the happiness, by 
just so much. 

The problem of happiness can scarcely be 
solved without a proper understanding of 
what it consists physiologically. What are 
the discordant notes which have spoiled man's 
song of life? What is the new philosophy of 
happiness ? 

The student of happiness must learn how 
much our happiness as well as our character 
depends upon sound health. He will find that 
there is no lasting unhappiness with sound 
health, and no real happiness without it. He 
will find that upon the integrity, not only of 
cerebral cells but of every cell in the human 
system, happiness depends. He will find that 
every feeling of comfort or discomfort, high 



104 The Joys of Living 

spirits or low spirits, hope or despair, coward- 
ice or bravery, depends chiefly upon active 
nutrition of the tissues, strength of heart-beats, 
vigor of nerves, in fact, upon the harmonious 
working of the entire physical organism. 

Few people realize that the cultivation and 
improvement of health is really the cultivation 
and improvement of the entire individual, for 
eveiy degree of improvement in the health 
means the raising another degree of every 
mental faculty. Improving the health in- 
creases the courage, lifts hope, raises self-confi- 
dence, initiative, indeed lifts every quality in 
one's nature — every mental faculty and every 
heart quality. Physical deterioration means 
a corresponding deterioration in every mental 
faculty and a corresponding depression in all 
the emotions. It means a httle less courage, 
a little less heart for our work ; it means a little 
less endurance, less powers of resistance to 
ward off the disease enemies, the enemies of 
our efficiency and happiness. 

Robust health and optimism produce hap- 
piness. The power of a sunny soul to trans- 
form the most trying situations in life is 



The Sin of Tired Neryes 105 

beyond all power to compute. The world 
loves the sunny soul, the man who carries his 
holidays in his eye and his sunshine with him. 
The determination to be kind and helpful to 
every one, to be cheerful, no matter what comes 
to us, is a great happiness producer. "When 
a man does not find repose in himself it is vain 
for him to seek it elsewhere."^ 



VIII 

THINK HEALTH AND JOY 

It is the mind that makes the man 

And our vigor is in our immortal soul. — Ovtd, 

There is nothing that will cripple one's cre- 
ative power quicker than the self-pity habit, 
the habit of coddling oneself. It paralyzes the 
faculties because it destroys self-confidence, 
shuts off power, courage. If you desire to get 
force and vigor into your efforts you must 
have a free avenue of self-expression. There 
must be no restriction anywhere. 

The moment you begin to coddle and pity 
yourself and to think that you cannot do this 
or that, your faculties will quickly sympathize 
with the condition of your mind, and your pro- 
ducing power will be weakened and cut down. 

I know a naturally able man who, by con- 
stant self -analysis and dire conviction about 
his physical and mental condition, has become 
quite morbid and has so cut off hisf confidence 
in his ability to do things that he is rapidly re- 

106 



Think Health and Joy 107 

ducing himself to a state of helplessness and 
uselessness. 

He has ruined his digestion by constantly- 
thinking about his food, what he can or cannot 
eat, and what will or will not agree with him. 
He swallows a mouthful of dyspepsia with 
every mouthful of food he eats. 

He must have certain brands of this or that. 
Whenever he goes away from home he takes 
his own tea and coffee and a certain kind of 
breakfast food with him, and must have 
special dishes cooked for him at hotels, or 
wherever he happens to be. When others are 
uncomfortably warm, he wants to have the 
windows closed in order to keep out draughts. 

He is constantly studying patent medicine 
advertisements and medical books, trying to 
find descriptions of his fancied ailments, and 
every time you meet him he is sure he has 
symptoms of some new physical trouble. 

He is forever thinking about his ailments, 
pitying himself and imagining all kinds of dire 
things are going to happen to him. He is con- 
vinced that he cannot undertake anything 
without bad results following. 



108 The Joys of Living 

The consequence of all this is that he has be- 
come a pygmy instead of the giant he might 
be. If he would only burst his self-imposed 
shackles, get out of himself, break away from 
the narrow bounds of his sickly, limited 
thought, he could be a power in the world. 

Physicians say that there is really nothing 
the matter with him physically; that the 
trouble is all in his mind; that he has thought 
of himself, coddled himself, imagined all sorts 
of physical limitations and studied disease 
symptoms so long that he has shorn himself of 
power and become a hopeless hypochondriac. 
It is his convictions that cripple him, and not 
his actual weakness or physical troubles. He 
is a victim of his imagination. 

Here is man superbly endowed by nature, 
creeping along in his career when he should be 
going by leaps and bounds, doing little things 
when he is capable of doing great things, just 
because he has analyzed himself so much and 
has centered his thought upon himself so long 
that he has become a slave to self-pity. 

No man can do anything great while he is 
constantly tying up his faculties by self-limi- 



Think Health and Joy 109 

tations, self-made handicaps. No man can 
get beyond his convictions. As long as he is 
convinced that he is physically weak and can- 
not do a thing he cannot do it. 

Everything which will tend to make one 
strong and robust physically will be a great 
help to nervous and imaginary troubles, but 
the greatest healing balm for them is mental 
self -treatment. 

A well-known physician who has made a 
specialty of nerve diseases, not getting satis- 
factory results from the prescription of drugs, 
tried the experiment of inducing his patients 
to smile under all circumstances, — to compel 
themselves to laugh whether they felt hke it or 
not. "Keep the corners of your mouth turned 
up," is his prescription for those suffering 
from melancholia. It works like a charm. 
With the corners of their mouths turned up 
the patients are obliged to smile no matter how 
melancholy or depressed they may feel. 
"Smile; keep on smiling; do not stop smiling," 
the doctor will say. "Just try turning up the 
corners of your mouth, regardless of your 
mood, and see how it makes you feel; then 



110 The Joys of Living 

draw them down, and note the effect, and you 
will be willing to declare, * There is sometliing 
in it.' " He has his patients remain in his 
office and smile. If it is not the genuine arti- 
cle, it must at least be an upward curvature of 
the corners of the mouth, and the better feel- 
ings invariably follow. 

This physician declares that if people will 
turn down the corners of their mouths and use 
sufficient mil power they can actually shed 
tears. On the other hand, if they will keep 
the corners of their mouths turned up, pleas- 
ant thoughts will take the place of stormy 
forebodings. 

One reason why we have such poor health 
is because we cairy such a low health ideal. 
We have been steeped in poor health thought 
from infancy. We have been saturated with 
the idea that pain, physical suffering, and dis- 
ease, are a part of life; necessary evils which 
cannot be avoided. We have had it so in- 
stilled into us from infancy that robust health 
is the exception and could not be expected to 
be the rule, that we have come to accept this 
unfortunate condition of things as a sort of 



Think Health and Joy 111 

fate from which we cannot hope to get away. 

The child hears so much sick talk, is cau- 
tioned so much as to the dangers of catching 
all sorts of diseases, that he grows up with the 
conviction that physical discords of all kinds 
are a law of his being. He grows up in the 
belief that at any time disease is liable to 
overtake him and ruin his happiness and his 
career. 

Think what the opposite training would 
do for the child ; if he were taught that health 
is the everlasting fact and that disease is the 
manifestation of the absence of harmony! 
Think what it would mean to him if he were 
trained to believe that abounding health, rich, 
full, complete, was his birthright! Think 
what it would mean for him to expect this dur- 
ing all his growing years, instead of building 
into his consciousness the opposite, instead of 
constantly hearing about sickness and being 
cautioned against disease and the danger of 
contracting it ! 

A child should be taught that God never 
created disease, suffering, never intended that 
we should suffer; that we were made for 



112 The Joys of Living 

health, abounding health and happiness, made 
to enjoy, not to suffer — made to be happy, not 
miserable, made to express harmony, not dis- 
cord. 

Mental activity and a healthy mental atti- 
tude have the most of all to do with happiness. 
The quality of the thought determines the 
quality o:^ the hfe. We cannot get healthy 
thinking from a diseased brain or nerve cells. 
If the vitality is below par, the life will drop 
to its level, and the power to enjoy will corre- 
spond. 

The happier you are the less energy you 
waste, because added happiness means added 
harmony, and the system wastes no energy 
while it continues in perfect harmony. The 
less energy you waste, the more vitality you 
will possess, and the greater your supply 
of vital energy, the less liable you are to sick- 
ness. When your system is absolutely full of 
vital energy, you will contract no disease. 

We should early form the habit of erasing 
from the mind all disagreeable, unhealthy, 
death-dealing thoughts. We should start out 
every morning with a clean slate. We should 



Think Health and Joy 113 

blot out from our mental gallery all discord- 
ant pictures, and replace them with the har- 
monious, uplifting, life-giving ones. 

A celebrated German physician says that 
there is something in man that is never sick, 
that never dies. 

This something is the man God made, the 
God image. This can never be discordant. It 
is independent of circumstances. This is the 
seat of health that is an everlasting fact. This 
is not the distorted image which wrong think- 
ing, vicious living, have made, but the man 
God made. 

And, if we appeal to this wholeness, this 
completeness, this perfection (this something in 
us which can never be sick, never die), and 
know that it is one with the immortal creative 
principles, all our discords will disappear, and 
we shall be at one with Principle, at one with 
Truth. This is life, and the life that is truth. 
Then we shall touch power. Then we shall 
come into our birthright, into perpetual har- 
mony. 

People suffering from nervous or mental 
disorders are usually filled with fear, and fear 



114 The Joys of Liyinq 

comes from a sense of helplessness due to a 
feeling of separateness from the great Divine 
energy which creates, heals, and sustains us. 
When we regain the consciousness of our one- 
ness, our at-one-ment with the Divine, with 
Infinite Life, when we get in tune with the 
Infinite, we feel a sense of wholeness, and 
assurance which drives away all fear. 



IX 

THE JOYS OF IMAGINATION! 

"O blest of heaven, whom not the languid songs 
Of luxury, the siren ! not the tribes 
Of sordid wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils 
Of pageant honor, can seduce to leave 
Those ever-blooming sweets, which from the store 
Of Nature fair Imagination culls 
To charm the enlivened soul!" 

An old lady who has been an invalid for 
many years has rarely been out of the house, 
and yet she says she has the most delightful 
times imaginable on her mental vacations. 
She travels abroad every day, revisits the 
scenes familiar in her childhood; climbs the 
Alps, walks through the streets of the cities 
of Italy, once so dear to her. She takes fre- 
quent sails on the loved Mediterranean. For 
hours she sits on the veranda of her old Sor- 
rento home and watches the numberless sails 
in the marvelous bay of Naples; and beyond 
she sees the smoke of Mt. Vesuvius traihng 
through the sky like the smoke of a great train 
of cars. She watches the oranges and lemons 

115 



116 The Joys of Living 

ripening on the trees. For hours this sweet 
old lady not only forgets all aches and pains 
which make her an invalid, but forgets the 
physical chains which enslave her in doors; and 
she wanders over the earth at will. She says 
that these mental trips are often more enjoya- 
ble than the physical ones, because she has 
none of the annoyances and discomforts of 
travel and none of the expense. 

She attends the great theatrical perform- 
ances frequently — takes mental trips to the 
leading theaters and reviews again the plays 
which she saw in her younger days. She reads 
Shakespeare, and sees Booth, Salvini, Bern- 
hardt, and all the great actors and actresses, 
who never tire repeating their plays for her. 
During the opera season this lady says she 
regularly attends the great performances. 
Oftentimes when in pain she starts off on her 
mental trips and for many hours scarcely re- 
turns to think of herself; and when she comes 
back she is refreshed with new hope and new 
courage for fighting her physical battles. She 
says that if people only knew the possibilities 
of enjoyment through the picturing power of 



The Joys of Imagination 117 

the imagination, the whole human race would 
be happy. 

The training and education of the majority 
of people do not half emphasize the possibil- 
ities of enjoyment through the imagination. 
The trouble is that most of us put too much 
emphasis upon the limitations of the senses. 
The imagination was given us to lift us out of 
all surrounding things and to make us prac- 
tically omnipresent. In the twinkling of an 
eye we can follow Arcturus flying through 
space at the rate of twenty thousand miles a 
minute ; although we may be amid the snows of 
the North, in an instant we can be among the 
palms and orange groves of the tropics. 

The trouble with many people who lack im- 
agination is that they have no Utopia, no vi- 
sion, and life is a hard, monotonous grind. 
Every one should have a Utopia and should 
live in it much of the time ; a place where every- 
thing is ideal, and where everybody and every- 
thing is what they ought to be. It is a great 
relief and refreshes one wonderfully to retire 
into his Utopia at will, where everything is 
ideal and where there is no discord, no friction, 



118 The Joys of Living 

nothing to worry or make one anxious, and 
where the mind can rest. 

I know several people so hemmed in by an 
iron environment, and so confined to perpetual 
hard work, that it is almost impossible for 
them to be long away from their places of 
business or their professions, and yet, although 
they are subject to rasping vexations and an- 
noying conditions such as would worry some 
people to shadows, they always seem to be 
serene, fresh, and buoyant, because they have 
acquired the happy art of mental refreshment 
and change by taking mental vacations. I 
have interviewed some of these people, and 
they tell me that, no matter how trying, or how 
exasperating their work, or how vexatious or 
annoying the conditions may be about them, 
when they get a bit of leisure they can in- 
stantly lift themselves out of their troubles 
into a harmonious and blissful mental con- 
dition which nothing material can touch or 
mar. 

They cross oceans and take mental trips 
into foreign lands which they have once visited. 
They have so educated their imaginations that 



The Joys of Imagination 119 

they can create new places, new worlds, people 
them, and live in them. They can see beauty 
that was never on sea or land, and hear melo- 
dies and harmonies that have never touched 
human ears. Many invalids have acquired 
this art of refreshment through mental tours, 
taking trips to beautiful lands that have never 
been seen by material eyes. They may not be 
able to go on long vacations into the country, 
but they are able to take many mental excur- 
sions there, and to go back to the old home or 
farm, and rehve their childhood days. Men- 
tally they wade and fish in the brooks, chmb 
the mountains, tramp in the forest, and mean- 
der through the meadows. 

What a wonderful compensation nature has 
provided to balance the hard, dry, dreary 
drudgery of life! The imaginative faculties 
are wings which enable us to soar away quickly 
into joys ineffable. 

How little many of us realize what a great 
gift we have in the imagination — that ability 
to fly away at will from our harassing, 
embarrassing, poverty-stricken surroundings ; 
from things which discourage, disgust, and an- 



120 The Joys of Living 

noy; away from grasping, grinding, sicken- 
ing drudgery; away from our worries and 
anxieties, the things that vex us — away from 
the "blues," into a paradise of joy, into an 
ideal world, where harmony, and beauty, and 
truth reign! 

What luxuries this power enables the poor 
to enjoy! It helps the prisoner to fly out of 
his cell, revisit his home and friends, and go 
where he will unmolested. It is said that 
many prisoners become almost totally uncon- 
scious of their confinement for many hours at 
a time. People who have written a great deal 
in prison, such as histories and stories, for 
months at a time have not found their confine- 
ment very irksome. Iron bars and a cell are 
powerless to imprison the mind. What a 
wonderful world Bunyan really lived in while 
he was in jail! Few people who have had 
their liberty have had such wonderful experi- 
ences. 

Nature has provided through the imagina- 
tion a wonderful means of escape for the in- 
valids and the shut-ins. Think what books 
mean to "shut-ins"! How they lift them out 



The Joys of Imagination 121 

of their narrow walls and take them on tours 
all over the world! 

Some people never seem to tire. Their 
minds are always fresh, responsive, resource- 
ful, creative, because they have this faculty of 
orienting the mind, freshening it by beautiful 
mental pictures. 

One of the great secrets of those who sur- 
prise everybody by the enormous amount of 
work they accomplish is their ability to take 
frequent mental recesses, or little vacations, 
their ability to shut all the doors through which 
little vexations and worries enter the mind, 
and waft themselves off on little excursions in 
the imagination, recalhng the pleasant mem- 
ories and reliving the scenes which have once 
made them happy. 

It does not take long to freshen a jaded 
mind if one knows the secret art. 

A child should be taught that the sources 
of his enjoyment are infinite, because the mere 
enjoyment of the physical senses, the pleasures 
from eating and drinking, the indulgence of 
passion, are as nothing compared to the larger, 
grander, sublimer pleasures which come from 



122 The Joys of Living 

the intellect. There is as much diiFerence be- 
tween the pleasure of the senses and the joys 
of the intellect as there is between the gratifi- 
cations of the lowest brute and the highest 
man. There are numerous instances in his- 
tory where prisoners have been infinitely hap- 
pier than some kings because their minds were 
unfettered. 

No matter how badly things may go about 
us, what blunders or mistakes harass us, no 
matter what misfortunes overtake us, we have 
wings in our imagination and can fly away 
from it all, and be at peace and at rest. We 
are like the captured eagle which the boys 
harass, tease, and torment, but which wrenches 
away from them and in an instant soars into 
the ether and is free again. 

The Creator gave us this power to make it 
possible for us to fly away at will from every- 
thing which embarrasses, humiliates, every- 
thing which annoys us, and in an instant to 
dwell in ideal conditions, in the sort of peace 
and joy never found in any earthly kingdom, 
or enjoyed by any earthly monarch. 

Ruskin said he was not so much surprised 



The Joys of Imagination 123 

at what we suffer as at what we lose, which 
might furnish infinite pleasure and satisfaction. 
We hear a great deal about the great loss of 
our natural resources, the coal, the water- 
power, and the forests — ^but they are nothing 
compared to the tremendous loss in the possi- 
ble resources of happiness. 

The great mass of people do not extract ten 
per cent, of the happiness possible in their 
everyday life, largely because they were never 
trained to think of the normal sources of en- 
joyment. Their minds are blank, except for 
the little grooves which their daily routine has 
stamped in their brain tissue. They are as 
ignorant of their possible mental resources as 
the early Indians were of the natural resources 
of this continent, when the Puritans landed 
at Plymouth Rock. They raised just enough 
barely to exist upon. They did not know how 
to feed, to clothe, or to enjoy themselves. 
Their minds were blank, and they lived in 
wretchedness, while the vast resources of the 
richest continent in the world were all unknown 
to them. 



TAKING LIFE TOO SERIOUSLY 

Talk happiness. The world is sad enough 
Without your woe. No path is wholly rough. 
Look for the places that are smooth and clear, 
And speak of them to rest the weary ear 
Of earth, so hurt by one continuous strain 
Of mortal discontent and grief and pain. 

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 

"Every man we meet looks as if he'd gone 
out to borrow trouble, with plenty of it on 
hand," said a French lady, upon arriving in 
New York. 

"The Americans are the best fed, the best 
clad, and the best housed people in the world," 
says another witness, "but they are the most 
anxious; they hug possible calamity to their 
breasts." 

"I question if care and doubt ever wrote 
their names so legibly on the faces of any 
other population," says Emerson. "Old age 
begins in the nursery." 

How quickly we Americans exhaust life! 
With what panting haste we pursue every- 

124. 



Taking Life Too Seriously 125 

thing! Every man you meet seems to be late 
for an appointment. Hurry and anxiety are 
stamped in the wrinkles of the national face. 

The American people as a rule take life 
much too seriously. They do not have half 
enough fun. Europeans look on our care- 
worn, solemn-faced people as on pieces of 
machinery run at forced speed and which 
squeak for lack of oil. 

If a man is hving in a perfectly normal way, 
he ought not to have, as so many have, a 
haunted, hounded look, as though he suspected 
either a policeman or a detective were on his 
track. He ought not to be worried and anx- 
ious every minute. He ought not to take his 
vocation so very seriously, and should not give 
the impression that the whole universe is hang- 
ing upon the result of his task. 

One day in a week devout people meet to 
praise the God who made the beautiful flow- 
ers, painted the butterflies, made all things 
beautiful in their time. The keynote of wor- 
ship should be sutsum corda — hft up your 
hearts. But how often the sermon is pitched 
in a minor key — discouraging and depressing. 



126 The Joys of Living 

Not long ago, I heard a young clergyman 
preach a sermon which was so very serious, and 
so very gloomy, that it made everybody in the 
congregation feel melancholy and depressed.. 
There was no uphft, no encouragement, noth- 
ing to stimulate one to greater endeavor. 
People did not go out of the church, as they 
should have gone, resolved to try a little 
harder than ever before, to do something worth 
while; but the whole congregation went away 
with a gloomy look on their faces. There had 
been nothing inspiring in the clergyman's ap- 
pearance. His face was so serious, and his 
whole manner so depressing, that it was really 
painful to listen to him. This young man was 
a substitute for the regular pastor. He said 
that he had not had a pastorate himself for a 
long time, and I did not wonder. 

He evidently lives such a solemn, serious 
life, that he is not normal. He is perfectly 
honest, and is doubtless making a great effort 
to kill the animal in him and to develop his 
spiritual side ; but he is not doing it in a normal 
way. There is nothing in true rehgion that is 
pessimistic, doleful, or gloomy. Its very es- 



Taking Life Too Seriously 127 

sense is cheerfulness, hopefulness. Its mis- 
sion is to uplift, encourage, and exalt, never 
to depress. 

What a blessing if all that is dejecting 
and disappointing, all that is sad, threaten- 
ing, doleful, and gloomy, every particle of 
pessimism could be excluded from all the 
churches of the world ! It is a positive sin for 
a man to enter the ministry mth a naturally 
gloomy, despondent disposition, inclined to 
look on the dark side of things. People have 
burdens enough of their own to bear, and do 
not want anybody to inject dark, doleful pic- 
tures in their minds. They go to church for 
uplift, for encouragement. They want to rid 
themselves of the enemies of their happiness 
and prosperity. Thousands of people who 
now remain away from church would gladly 
go if they could come away feeling uplifted, 
encouraged, and with increased hopefulness. 

Man wants his faith in himself, in human 
nature, in his God, enlarged. When people 
go to church, they want to look at a hopeful, 
inspiring face. Otherwise they will say to 
themselves, 'Tf this man is an example of the 



128 The Joys of Living 

religion he advocates, if he spends all of his 
time discharging such a glorious mission, it 
certainly ought to have produced a more in- 
spiring, helpful product." We instinctively 
feel that the clergyman who does not make us 
more hopeful, who does not enlarge our faith 
and inspire us to greater endeavor for the 
right, has mistaken his calling. 

"Away with these fellows who go howling 
through life," wrote Beecher, "and all the 
while passing for birds of paradise. He that 
cannot laugh and be gay should look to him- 
self. He should fast and pray until his face 
breaks forth into light." "Some people have 
an idea that they comfort the afflicted when 
they groan over them," says Talmage. 
"Don't drive a hearse through a man's soul. 
When you bind up a broken bone of the soul, 
and want splints, do not make them of cast 
iron." 

Why take life so seriously, anyway? A lot 
of play will not only improve your health, but 
increase your efficiency wonderfully. 

Happy recreation has a very subtle in- 
fluence upon one's ability, which is emphasized 



Taking Life Too Seriously 129 

and heightened and multiphed by it. How 
our courage is braced up, our determination, 
our ambition, our whole outlook on life 
changed by it! There seems to be a subtle 
fluid from humor and fun which penetrates 
the entire being, bathes all the mental facul- 
ties, and washes out the brain-ash and debris 
from exhausted cerebrum and muscles. We 
have all experienced the transforming, re- 
freshing, renewing, rejuvenating power of 
good, wholesome fun. 

From business and economical standpoints 
alone, to say nothing of increased health and 
happiness, even a good deal of time spent in 
play is time well spent, and is an essential 
part of the shrewdest, most profitable business 
policy you can adopt. 

The man too absorbed in his business or 
vocation, too busy to take care of his health, 
to preserve it by wholesome recreation, is like 
a, workman who is too busy to sharpen his 
tools. 

You may never be able to accumulate a 
large fortune, but whether you are a big law- 
yer or a small one, a large merchant or a little 



130 The Joys of Living 

one, you can cultivate the capacity for enjoy- 
ment and fun, and can get a great deal more 
out of life than many who are perhaps far 
above you in wealth and position. 

Take your fun every day as you go along. 
That is the only way to be sure of it. Do not 
postpone your happiness. 

Some of us are beginning to realize that we 
have taken life too seriously; that we have not 
had enough play in our lives: that we have not 
had half enough fun. Many business men 
see the fallacy of working too many hours a 
day. Formerly they thought they must spend 
most or all of the daylight hours in working. 
Intense application to business had become 
almost a rehgion. But now they are begin- 
ning to learn that it is efficiency, mental vigor, 
freshness of mind and body, and not neces- 
sarily long hours, that do things; and that the 
mental vigor, freshness, and energy which pro- 
duce efficient work are impossible when the 
body is weary and the brain is fagged; that 
mental robustness means physical robustness. 
So there has been a steady shortening of the 
working hours of men of affairs, and an in- 



Taking Life Too Seriously 131 

creasing of the play hours, just in proportion 
to the importance and efficiency of their work 
and responsibility. 

There are plenty of business men in this 
country at the head of great establishments 
who get through an enormous amount of work, 
who do not spend more than three or four 
hours a day in their offices, and who frequently 
take long vacations. They find that a good 
deal of play and mixing much with the world 
not only improves their health and multiplies 
their efficiency, but also gives them a broader, 
saner outlook. 

There is no greater delusion than that we 
can accomplish more by working a great many 
hours, straining mind and body to the limit of 
endurance, than by working fewer hours with 
less strain, less fatigue, but with greater vigor, 
greater intensity. 

Great efficiency, vigorous mental concentra- 
tion, are impossible when the mind is over- 
strained, fatigued, or when we do not have 
sufficient recreation to restore its elasticity, 
its rebound. Many Americans have the idea 
that great achievement depends upon unceas- 



132 The Joys of Living 

ing, strenuous industry, the everlasting grind. 
They think that the more they work the more 
they will accomplish. The fact is that what 
we achieve in life depends upon the eif ective- 
ness of our work, upon our efficiency, rather 
than upon the length of time we work. 

Many people who are capable of doing 
good work, do very inferior work, simply be- 
cause they are in a run-down, jaded condi- 
tion much of the time. Everywhere we see 
ineffective, botched work, because men do not 
keep themselves in a vigorous, healthy condi- 
tion. They do not play enough, do not have 
sufficient exercise in the open air, recreation 
that refreshens and strengthens both mind and 
muscle. They take life too seriously. 

When you have plenty of fun you work 
with more vigor, and with greater enthusiasm ; 
you begin your day in better spirits, are more 
hopeful, and you leave your work at night 
happy, and in a more contented frame of 
mind. Many men work their employees so 
many hours, and so hard, that they do not keep 
fresh, buoyant, and enthusiastic. 

Where did the idea come from that we 



Taking Life Too Seriously 138 

should take life so seriously, anyway? Why 
should a man be such a slave to his bread- 
winning? We ought to be able to get a good 
living, even to make fortunes, and yet have a 
good time every day of our lives. This idea 
of being a slave most of the time, and of only 
occasionally enjoying a holiday, is all wrong. 
Every day should be a holiday, a day of joy 
and gladness, a day of supreme happiness; 
and it would be, if we lived sanely, if we knew 
the secret of right thinking and normal living. 

There is certainly something wrong in the 
very idea of sacrificing the juices of our lives 
for the husks which we get. Remember that 
there is something else in the world even more 
important than making money. Your health, 
your family, your friendships should mean a 
thousand times more to you than dollar- 
chasing. 

Life was given us for enjoyment, not for 
one long, strenuous, straining struggle in the 
dreary drudgery of scraping dollars together. 
Living-getting was intended to be only a mere 
incidental in the larger life of growth, of free- 
dom of soul expansion, mind-enlargement. 



134 The Joys of Living 

Men could get joy out of their business if 
they only knew how, and by taking the 
drudgery out of it they would not only be 
happier, but they would also be more pros- 
perous. 

A great many men fail because they are too 
serious ; because they develop unsocial, morose, 
cold quahties which repel, and which make 
them poor mixers. It is the sunshiny, happy 
nature which attracts friends and trade. The 
too serious people seem to say, "Keep away 
from me, life is too serious a matter to be spent 
on trivial things." They are dry, and rutty, 
because there is not enough play in their lives 
to furnish the necessary lubrication, variety, 
or change. 

Some one said to me once: "The New 
Englander is actually afraid of enjoying him- 
self. He does not feel just right when he is 
spending money trying to have a good time. 
He thinks that he ought to be doing some- 
thing more serious, that it is frivolous for a 
man to be spending his precious time and hard- 
earned money trying to enjoy himself. He 
believes with Carlyle, that 'it is none of his 



Taking Life Too Seriously 135 

business whether he is happy or not, that he 
was put into this world to do something seri- 
ous, and he must do it.' " 

While that is a very unfair estimate of the 
whole New England character, it is true that 
many New England people are so consti- 
tuted that they cannot really enjoy a holiday 
or a vacation, because they feel that it is too 
frivolous, that they ought to be doing some- 
thing better than that. They feel that they 
must be about ''the Master's business." 

Now, to my mind, ''the Master's business" 
often means a great deal of play, — of health- 
ful, rejuvenating recreation. It means a lot 
of enjoyment, a lot of real fun, to keep 
healthy, normal, and efficient. 

It is said that "the easy chair is a necessary 
part of the strenuous life." 

It is impossible for any normal being to 
keep his life in harmony without a great deal 
of recreation and play. 

What magic a single hour's fun will often 
work in a tired soul! 

We have all felt the wonderful balm, the 
great uplift, the refreshment, the rejuvena- 



186 The Joys of Living 

tion which have come from a jolly good time 
with family or friends, when we have gone 
home after a hard, exacting day's work, when 
our bodies were jaded and we were brain- 
weary and exhausted. 

Many people give us the impression that 
the famed Damocletian sword of pain, sus- 
pended by a thread, hangs over them con- 
stantly ready to fall and pierce them at any 
moment even in their joys and pleasures. 
They never seem to enjoy anything without 
alloy. They give you the impression that 
they are conscious of the skeleton's presence 
at every feast. 

**It's a real duty to be jolly," says A. 
Merryman, "and the violation of it ought to 
subject any one to fine and imprisonment. 
What right has any one to go about the com- 
munity lachrymose, woe-begone, with 'tears 
in's eye, distraction in's aspect'? What right 
has he to distribute the bacilli of depression, 
gloom, dumpishness, and general 'forlornity'? 
A fellow may have corns and porous plasters, 
and boils and styes and spasms, and freckles 
and moles, and ear-drums and quinine 



Taking Life Too Seriously 137 

pills, and an utter absence of joy in the 
stomachic regions, but he needn't hire the 
town-crier to go about with a bell proclaim- 
ing it. He needn't be pouring it into the ear 
of every unwilling button-holed victim who 
feels afterwards as if he had visited all the 
hospital 'incurables,' 

"Take a brace — a strong one! Smile on, 
smile ever ! Groan not ! Whine not ! Whim- 
per not! Grumble not! Say you're feeling 
gay, jolly, all right, salubrious — never better 
in your life. Laugh — laugh out loud — real 
loud. Risk the blood-vessels and have a good 
old chuckle for once. Burn your own smoke! 
You're not the only Job on the ash-heap. 
Stop peddling disagreeables and creating a 
social blanket of sticky, shivery fog. Scatter 
sunshine — bushels of it — cart-loads of it, 
whole freight-trains of it. Scatter it by the 
barrel, bag, and ton. People won't object to 
it. They'll take all you can give them." 

"Care in our coffin drives a nail, no doubt; 
But every grin so merry draws one out." 

A cheerful disposition that scorns every 
rebuff of fortune and laughs in the face of 



138 The Joys of Living 

disaster is a divine gift. "Fate itself has to 
concede a great many things to the cheerful 
man." To be able to laugh away trouble is 
greater fortune than to possess the mines of 
King Solomon. It is a fortune, too, that is 
within the reach of all who have the courage 
and nobility of soul to keep their faces turned 
to the light. 



XI 

HAPPINESS CAN BE CULTIVATED 

"The rose is but a cultivated cabbage." 

I KNOW a lady who once underwent an oper- 
ation for the removal of a tumor. Everything 
in her life dates from that time. She cannot 
converse on any subject but she drags in her 
"operation." It is her excuse for her expla- 
nation of all her shortcomings in domestic 
affairs. 

How many people are loath to let their 
troubles go! They have lived with them so 
long that they have become sort of companions, 
and they seem to take a morbid pleasure in 
entertaining them, just as some patients like 
to dwell upon their symptoms and aches and 
pains. 

Few people realize that happiness may be 
cultivated to any great extent. They seem 
to think that the power to enjoy life is largely 
hereditary, that they cannot do very much to 
change a crotchety, sour, unhappy disposition. 

139 



140 The Joys or Living 

One of the most difficult lessons of life is to 
learn that we are largely the product of our 
thought; that our environment, our education, 
our habitual thought have very much more to 
do with the output of our lives than heredity. 
St. Paul was really scientific when he said to 
his disciples: "Be ye transformed by the re- 
newing of your mind." 

The brain changes to meet the demand made 
upon it. It is modified by its condition of 
activity, the motives which actuate, mold, and 
shape the conditions which the individual has 
to meet. 

The brain is very adaptable, as shown by the 
effects upon it by the different vocations. 
Each makes a different call upon it and de- 
velops faculties and characteristics peculiar 
to it. 

When the world was young, the human brain 
was very primitive, because the demand upon 
it was largely for self-protection and the acqui- 
sition of food ; but gradually a higher call was 
made upon it, a more varied development de- 
manded, and now it has became exceedingly 
complex. Every new demand of civilization 



Happiness Can Be Cultivated 141 

has made a new call upon the brain, and it has 
responded to the call and has adapted itself 
to modern needs. 

Many people have an idea that the brain is 
not susceptible to any great change, but is 
limited, fixed by heredity. But there are nu- 
merous examples of people who have com- 
pletely revolutionized portions of their brains. 
Faculties which were weak at birth or de- 
ficient from lack of exercise, have been made 
strong. 

For example, take courage. Many success- 
ful people were as children so completely de- 
void of this quality that it threatened to wreck 
their careers. Their courage was strength- 
ened through the help of intelligent training; 
this was done by the cultivation of self-confi- 
dence, the constant holding in the mind the 
suggestion of courage, the contemplation of 
brave deeds. 

There are plenty of people doing little things 
in the world who might become mental giants, 
if their dormant faculties were aroused, and 
their general ability improved and enlarged by 
scientific brain culture. 



142 The Joys of Living 

It is a curious fact that most people think 
that while they are obliged to spend many 
years in preparing for and developing a spec- 
ialty in their careers, happiness, which means 
more to them than almost anything else, should 
be a haphazard development, that it should 
come with practically no training, no special 
study, while everything else in life that is worth 
while requires such infinite pains. 

It is a great thing so to cultivate the art of 
happiness that we can get pleasure out of the 
common experiences of every day. 

The happiness habit is just as necessary to 
our best welfare as the work habit, or the 
honesty or square-dealing habit. 

What a great thing it is to be able to habit- 
ually turn one's back to every shadow that ap- 
proaches, to face the light, whether much or 
little! 

Most unhappy people have gradually become 
so by forming the habit of unhappiness. The 
habit of complaining, of criticising, of fault- 
finding or grumbling over trifles, the habit of 
looking for shadows, is one most unfortunate 
to contract, especially in early life, for after a 



Happiness Can Be Cultivated 143 

while the victim becomes a slave to it. All of 
the impulses become perverted, until the tend- 
ency to pessimism, to cynicism, is chronic. 

Nothing contributes more to the highest suc- 
cess than the formation of a habit of seeing the 
bright side of things. Whatever your calling 
in life may be, whatever misfortunes or hard- 
ships may come to you, make up your mind 
resolutely that, come what may, you will get 
the most possible real enjoyment out of every 
day; that you will increase your capacity for 
enjoying life, by trying to find the sunny side 
of every experience of the day. Resolutely 
determine that you will see the humorous side 
of things. No matter how hard or unyielding 
your environment may seem to be, there is a 
sunny side if you can only see it. The mirth- 
provoking faculty, even under trying circum- 
stances, is worth more to a young man or 
woman starting out in life than a fortune with- 
out it. Make up your mind that you will be 
an optimist, that there shall be nothing of the 
pessimist about you, that you will carry your 
own sunshine wherever you go. 

There is a wonderful medicinal effect in good 



144 The Joys of Living 

cheer. Good news and glad tidings have a 
magic effect even upon invalids. 

We often see a whole store or factory or 
home transformed by one sunny soul. 

It is a great thing to go through life with 
a smiling face. Think how the pleasure of 
living would be increased if we met smiling 
faces everywhere — faces which radiate hope, 
sunshine, and cheer! What a joy to travel in 
a gallery of living pictures, radiating hope, 
cheer, and courage! 

One of the rules of the vocational bureau of 
Boston is to cultivate a smile as one of the 
winning graces which enriches life. What 
would do more to bring sunshine and cheer into 
the Mfe? 

It is pitiable to watch the faces of many of 
our young people in great cities and to see how 
sad, serious, and suppressed they are. Why 
should a young life be weighed down with anx- 
iety, care, and worry? What have gray hairs 
and furrows of care, deep lines in the face, 
sadness and moroseness, to do with youth? 

If we were living perfectly normal and nat- 
ural lives, we should carry youth into old age. 



Happiness Can Be Cultivated 145 

There should be no such thing as prema- 
ture gray hairs or signs of age upon youthful 
faces. 

"Cheerfulness," says Ruskin, "is as natural 
to the heart of man in strong health as glow to 
his cheek, and wherever there is habitual gloom, 
there must be either bad air, unwholesome food, 
improperly severe labor, or erring habits of 
life." 

"I am resolved to give no further room in 
my thoughts to anxiety, fear, and depression," 
says Florence Morse Kingsley. 

We can so educate the will power that it 
will focus the thoughts upon the bright side 
of things, and upon objects which elevate the 
soul, thus forming a habit of happiness and 
goodness which will enrich the whole life. The 
habit of making the best of everything and of 
always looking on the bright side is a fortune 
in itself. 

"Happiness should be sought as a duty to 
others for the benefit of self, and for self for 
the benefit of others. Happiness should be a 
means, a chief end. Without good conscience, 
good conduct, there is no happiness." 



146 The Joys of Living 

When will men learn that the mere titilla- 
tion of the nerves, mere excitement and dissi- 
pation or any kind of excesses, can hring 
nothing but a miserable, disappointing reaction 
and a wounded self-respect? Real happiness 
depends upon honesty. It is made up of 
square-dealing, of kindness, helpfulness, fair- 
ness. 

"Happiness," says an able writer, "is the 
greatest paradox in nature. It can grow in 
any soil, live under any conditions. It defies 
environment. It comes from within; it is the 
revelation of the depths of the inner life as 
light and heat proclaim the sun from which 
they radiate. Happiness consists not of hav- 
ing, but of being; not of possessing, but of 
enjoying. It is the warm glow of a heart at 
peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may 
have happiness that a king on his throne might 
envy. Man is the creator of his own happi- 
ness ; it is the aroma of a life lived in harmony 
with high ideals. For what a man has, he may 
be dependent on others; what he is, rests with 
himself alone. What he ofctains in life is but 
acquisition; what he artains, is growth. Hap- 



Happiness Can Be Cultivated 147 

piness is the soul's joy in the possession of the 
intangible." 

"We take less pains to be happy than to 
appear so." 

It is the duty of everybody to cultivate a 
happy, joyful nature, a kindly eye, the power 
of radiating good will toward every one. It 
will not only brighten the lives of others, but 
the reflex action of such kindly eiFort will also 
help to develop that exquisite personality, that 
beauty of character and balance of soul, that 
serenity, which is the greatest wealth we know. 

"Be glad! When you have said all there is 
to say about life's sorrow, disappointment, and 
pain, about the selfishness and wrong that 
sweep over the earth like dark shadows, about 
the shortness of its days and the certainty of its 
nights, it still remains blessedly true that the 
universe is thrilling with the song of gladness," 
says a helpful writer. 

"Be glad for the beauty of the springtime, 
the blue of the skies, the music of the birds, 
and the glory of the sunsets. Listen to the 
laughter of the little children, answer to 
the hand clasp of friendship, grow warm in 



148 The Joys of Living 

the love light of countless happy homes, and 
be sure that somewhere over and above all is 
a great Love that makes all these things pos- 
sible. Note the noble lives round you, com- 
monplace, it may be, but unselfish, brave, and 
true. Note the deeds of quiet self-sacrifice, 
the swift rush of human kindness to every 
place of need, the uprising of stately walls to 
shelter the weak and helpless, and beheve, if 
you can, that the kingdom of Christ is not 
coming in the hearts of the children of men ! 

"Oh, put away gloom and grief and com- 
plaining! Do His work, trust His promise 
and be glad." 

One of the best of success helps is to acquire, 
early in youth, a habit of thinking that the 
best, not the worst, will happen; that we are 
not poor, miserable creatures, hounded on 
every hand by the enemies of our life and hap- 
piness, but that we were made to be happy, to 
be free from harassing cares, anxieties, fore- 
bodings ; that we were not made to worry or to 
project black pictures, but to create bright 
and cheerful ones. 

Do not allow yourself to read, to hear, or to 



I 



Happiness Can Be Cultivated 149 

see anything which will produce discord or dis- 
turb your peace of mind and harmony. 

"Find out, as early as possible, what you can 
best do, and do it with all your might, and ex- 
pect to succeed, no matter what obstacles you 
may encounter," says Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 
"Cultivate a philosophical vein of thought. 
If you have not what you like, like what you 
have until you can change your environment. 

"Do not waste your vitality in hating your 
life; find something in it which is worth liking 
and enjopng, while you keep steadily at work 
to make it what you desire. Be happy over 
something, every day, for the brain is a thing 
of habit, and you cannot teach it to be happy 
in a moment, if you allow it to be miserable for 
years." 

We should no more allow a discordant or a 
dark picture in the mind, than we would allow 
a thief in our home. We should remember 
that such thoughts are worse than thieves, be- 
cause they steal away our comfort, our happi- 
ness, our contentment. These black enemies, 
these discordant guests, leave their scars and 
stains and slimes upon the house that is beauti- 



150 The Joys of Living 

ful within. It is almost impossible to exclude 
them when they once enter, but it is compara- 
tively easy to keep them out when we once 
learn the secret of excluding them. 

We should learn that these enemies have no 
right to intrude themselves upon our conscious- 
ness. Treat them as trespassers, eject them 
instantly, and do not allow them to paint their 
black images upon the mind. 

*'Most sorrows are gold bricks that will not 
pan out genuine grief in the assay, and not 
one person in a hundred has a right to indulge 
in melancholy. Of nothing else in the world 
is there such a sinful waste as there is of tears, 
and we should be just as much ashamed of 
being unhappy as of being unwashed. Both 
states indicate a slovenly submitting to the 
grime of life, instead of an energetic ridding 
ourselves of its unpleasantness." 

No matter what his vocation or condition in 
life may be, every one owes it to himself and 
to the world to form a habit of being just as 
happy as he can. Happiness means harmony 
and harmony means health to all bodily 
functions; it means efficiency. Faculties give 



Happiness Can Be Cultivated 151 

out their best when they are normal. To keep 
happy is, therefore, the best personal economy 
and surest investment; it insures the greatest 
possible output of brain and body. 

Much natural ability is rendered inefficient 
because men and women do not know that dis- 
cord, whether in fear, worry, selfishness, hatred 
or jealousy, is a health and happiness killer; 
an efficiency blighter. Many men waste more 
vitality and mental energy in a few minutes 
of hot temper than would be required in the 
legitimate running of their business for days. 

Have you ever thought of the great magic 
of happiness as a healer of troubles, trials, and 
worries? Happiness is a great healer of dis- 
ease because all disease is discord, and happi- 
ness is harmony, truth, beauty. 

The time will come when our physicians will 
prescribe happiness as the great healing rem- 
edy, and we shall be taught how to be cheerful 
and happy, even amidst the most discordant 
conditions, by neutralizing the causes. 

"Health and good humor," said Massillon, 
"are to the human body like sunshine to vege- 
tation." 



152 The Joys of Living 

The man who is habitually sad or gloomy is 
so because the corresponding thoughts pre- 
dominate in his mind. By thinking the oppo- 
site thoughts he can produce the opposite 
results. The state of mind is largely a 
mental habit which is not very difficult to 
change. 

*' Happiness, as proved by ages of human 
experience, is simply the music of a well- 
ordered life," says M. J. Savage, "and every 
time you break a law of body, mind or soul 
you detract so much from the very possibility 
of happiness, just as every time you mar an 
organ you take away from the possibility of its 
producing music." 

"If you think of it and reflect upon it often, 
happiness will become habitual and a power in 
your hands for so much good," says Margaret 
Stowe. "We can cultivate the habit of always 
looking on the bright side of things. We all 
possess the power of exercising the will so as 
to direct the thoughts upon objects calculated 
to yield to happiness and improvement rather 
than their opposites. 

"If we try always to look happy and pleas- 



Happiness Can Be Cultivated 153 

ant, whether we feel so or not, the eiFort will 
gradually become a habit with us." 

We may form this habit of happiness by 
making the most of little pleasures and not 
waiting for overwhelming joys. 

"It is only now and then that a comet flashes 
into view, but the sunshine is a daily blessing," 
some one says, "and it would be a silly plant 
which waited for a comet to appear before put- 
ting forth blossoms. There is little likelihood 
that any extraordinary joy will come to you 
to-day, but there will be plenty of small pleas- 
ures. Make the most of each one. Enjoy the 
friendly letter which came in the morning's 
mail, the comfortable room in which you do 
your work, the pleasant acquaintance you 
made at dinner, the chance you had to say an 
encouraging word to the homesick girl in the 
next office. There is no mystery about hap- 
piness, neither is it a matter of chance, as some 
would have us think. Instead it is one of the 
most practical things in the world, and one who 
has learned to make the most of little every- 
day blessings has mastered its chief secret." 

Many people never take time to enjoy the 



154 The Joys of Living 

pleasant things in life. They trample down 
the violets and the beautiful small flowers try- 
ing to reach the larger life blossoms. They 
try too hard to attain the big things while it 
is the multitude of little things, the little 
enjoyments as we go along, that makes life 
happy. 

Most people go through life straining their 
eyes for something so far ahead and so impos- 
sible to attain that they trample down all of 
the lesser joys. It is our straining for big re- 
sults that incapacitates us from enjoying the 
every-day little things. 

It does not necessarily mean that life is dis- 
appointing because it does not measure up to 
the rosy pictures of your youthful dreams; it 
means that you have not formed the habit of 
happiness, and so have not learned to appreci- 
ate your life as it is passing. You probably 
do not get a tithe of the blessings out of the 
present moment that are awaiting you. 

You may think that the routine of your life 
is extremely common, insipid, flavorless, but 
right alongside of you there may be others who 
lead the same kind of a life, who are getting 



Happiness Can Be Cultivated 155 

happiness out of it; who think that life is a 
glory instead of a grind. They may make play 
of their work while you make it a drudgery. 
They may find joy in it while you find nothing 
interesting in it. 

You may never have learned to see the un- 
common in the common. Others may see 
more glory in the grass you tread under your 
feet and in the small flowers you never look at, 
than you could find in the garden of a king. / 
There may be people living near you who get 
more out of a home with carpetless floors and 
pictureless walls than you could get out of a 
palace, for with them love and contentment 
and sweet sympathy dwell, while perhaps in 
your home there is only selfishness, greed, and 
discontent. 

Thousands get into a habit of being un- 
happy, and nothing, it would seem, can make 
them less so. 

"One who is not bom a musician needs to 
toil more assiduously to acquire skill in the art, 
however strong his desire or great his taste, 
than the natural genius. So the man not en- 
dowed with joyous impulses needs to set him- 



156 The Joys of Living 

self the task of acquiring the habit of hap- 
piness," says a well-known writer. '*I be- 
lieve it can be done. To the sad or restless 
or discontented being I would say: Begin 
each morning by resolving to find something 
in the day to enjoy. Look in each experience 
which comes to you for some grain of happi- 
ness. You will be surprised to find how much 
that has seemed hopelessly disagreeable pos- 
sesses either an instructive or an amusing side. 
'^Cultivate happiness as an art or science." 



XII 

THE JOYS OF ntlENDSHIP 

**Who knows the joys of friendship — 
The trust, security, and mutual tenderness. 
The double joys, where each is glad for both? 
Friendship, our only wealth, our last retreat and strength, 
Secure against ill-fortune and the world." 

"I WOULD go to hell, if there were such a 
place, with any friend of mine, and I would 
want no heaven of which I have ever read if 
any friend of mine were in the outer dark," 
said Dr. Minot J. Savage, in the course of a 
sermon on "The Companionship of Friends." 

The intimacy of friendship reveals the deep 
secrets of our hearts. 

Is there anything more sacred in this world 
than unselfish, devoted friendship, and yet is 
there anything of great value we take so little 
pains to cultivate and to keep; is there any- 
thing of value we abuse so much by neglect? 

One reason why so many people have so few 
friends is that they have so little to give, and 
they expect everything. If you cultivate at- 

15T 



158 The Joys of Living 

tractive and lovable qualities, friends will flock 
around you. 

Most of us attend to everything else first, 
and if we have any little scraps of time left we 
give them to our friends, when we ought to 
make a business of our friendships. Are they 
not worth it? 

Is there anything more beautiful in this 
world than the consciousness of possessing 
sweet, loyal, helpful friends, whose devotion is 
not affected in the least by a fortune or the 
lack of it; friends who love us even more in 
adversity than in prosperity? 
/ The faith of friends is a perpetual stimulus. 
How it nerves and encourages us to do our 
best, when we feel that scores of friends really 
believe in us when others misunderstand and 
denounce us! 

Ah, there is no other stimulator, helpmeet, 
or joy-giver like a true friend! Well might 
Cicero say: "They seem to take away the sun 
from the world who withdraw friendship from 
life; for we have received nothing better from 
the immortal gods, nothing more delightful." 

It means a great deal to have enthusiastic 



The Joys ot' Friendship 159 

friends always looking out for our interests, 
working for us all the time, saying a good 
word for us at every opportunity, supporting 
us, speaking for us in our absence when we 
need a friend, shielding our sensitive, weak 
spots, stopping slanders, kilhng lies which 
would injure us, correcting false impressions, 
trying to set us right, overcoming the preju- 
dices created by some mistake or slip, or a first 
bad impression we made in some silly moment, 
who are always doing something to give us a 
lift or help us along! 

What sorry figures many of us would 
cut but for our friends! What marred and 
scarred reputations most of us would have but 
for the cruel blows that have been warded off 
by our friends, the healing balm that they have 
applied to the hurts of the world! Many of 
us would have been very much poorer finan- 
cially, too, but for the hosts of friends who 
have sent us customers and clients and busi- 
ness, who have always turned our way every- 
thing they could. 

Oh, what a boon our friends are to our weak- 
nesses, our idiosyncrasies and shortcomings^ 



160 The Joys of Living 

our failures generally! How they throw a 
mantle of charity over our faults, and cover 
up our defects! 

What a cold, heartless world this would be 
to us, — empty, insipid, stupid, without our 
friends, those who believe in us, even when 
everybody else denounces us, — those who love 
us, not for what we have, but for what we are ! 

Those who appreciate us, who help to build 
up instead of destroying our self-confidence, 
double our power of accomplishment. In 
their presence we feel strong and equal to al- 
most any task. This was one of the great 
secrets of Phillips Brooks's marvelous power. 
Filled with an intense belief in man's possibili- 
ties, he aroused many a mediocre youth to a 
realization of the strength that lay dormant 
within him, made him feel almost a giant in 
his presence, and inspired him to do things of 
which he would not otherwise have believed 
himself capable. He had the happy faculty 
of awakening people to a sense of their own 
innate dignity, — a feeling as far removed from 
mere selfish egotism as light is from dark- 
ness, — of strengthening their confidence in 



The Joys of Friendship 161 

their own powers, of arousing their enthusiasm 
in the pursuit of good. He made those who 
came in contact with him feel that it was mean 
and contemptible to look down when they 
could look up, to grovel when they could soar, 
to do the lower when the higher was possible. 
In his presence the timid were emboldened, the 
vacillating became self-poised, the negative 
positive. 

Who can estimate the value of such an 
uplifting influence? Our best friend never 
embarrasses us by making us feel our inferi- 
ority or weakness. On the contrary, he al- 
ways gives us a lift upward, a push onward. 

Oh! what a difference a friend has made in 
the lives of most of us! How many people a 
strong, loyal friendship has kept from utter 
despair, from giving up the struggle for suc- 
cess! How many men and women have been 
kept from suicide by the thought that some one 
loved them, believed in them; how many have 
preferred to suffer tortures to dishonoring or 
disappointing their friends! The thrill of en- 
couragement which has come from the pressure 
of a friendly hand, or an encouraging, friendly 



162 The Joys of Living 

word, has proved the turning-point in many a 
Ufe. 

What is more sacred in this world than our 
friendships ! One of the most touching things 
I know of is the office of a real friend to one 
who is not a friend to himself — one who has 
lost his self-respect, his self-control and fallen 
to the level of the brute! Ah! this is friend- 
ship, indeed, which will stand by us when we 
will not stand by ourselves! I know a man 
who thus stood by a friend who had become 
such a slave to drink and all sorts of vice that 
even his family had turned him out of doors. 
When his father and mother and wife and 
children had forsaken him, his friend remained 
loyal. He would follow him nights in his 
debauches, and many a time saved him from 
freezing to death when he was so inebriated 
that he could not stand. Scores of times this 
friend would leave his home and hunt in the 
slums for him, to keep him from the hands of 
a policeman, and to shield him from the cold 
when every one else had forsaken him ; and this 
great love and devotion finally redeemed the 
fallen man and sent him back to decency and 



I 



The Joys of Friendship 163 

to his home. Can any money measure the 
value of such friendship! 

"And what delights can equal those 
That stir the spirit's inner deeps, 
When one that loves but knows not, reaps 
A truth from one that loves and knows?" 

The friendship which shrinks from telHng 
the truth and cannot bear to cause pain when 
justice demands it, does not command as high 
a quahty of admiration as the one which is ab- 
solutely just, frank, and sincere. No great 
friendship can rest upon pretense or deception. 
Sincerity is the very core of friendship. 

Was there ever such capital for starting 
in business for oneself as plenty of friends? 
How many people, who are now successful, 
would have given up the struggle in some great 
crisis of their Hves, but for the encouragement 
of some friend which has tided them over the 
critical place! 

Many people seem to think that their friends 
are mere incidental things in life, that it is not 
worth while to put oneself out a great deal to 
cultivate them. The result is that their Hves 
are barren, poverty-stricken, and unsatisfac- 
tory. 



164 The Joys of Living 

No one truly lives in any liberal, true sense 
who does not cultivate many friends. No one 
would get very much out of hf e if he lived ab- 
solutely alone. It is the vital connection, the 
sweet, satisfying communion with our kind 
that makes hfe worth living. 

One reason why so many people are disap- 
pointed with what life has for them is because 
they have never cultivated the capacity for 
friendship. 

Some one has well said that unhappiness is 
the hunger to get; while happiness is the 
hunger to give. 

Friendship is no one-sided affair, but an 
exchange of soul qualities. There can be no 
friendship without reciprocity. One cannot 
receive all and give nothing, or give all and 
receive nothing, and expect to experience the 
joy and fullness of true companionship. 

"Many are heart hungry and miserable for 
no other reason than this, they are living apart 
from their friends. There is a balm in friend- 
ship that can heal a thousand ills. There is a 
power in the tender sympathy of a friend that 
can disperse the darkness of despair and cause 



I 



The Joys of Friendship 165 

the sunshine of hope and cheer to flood the 
mansion of hfe once more." 

How many men and women go through life 
with a sense of loneliness, hungry for friends 
and for the love and admiration of others, sim- 
ply because of something about their person- 
alities which repels ! These people are usually 
proud and sensitive, and they wonder why 
they are shunned and avoided, but they never 
learn to study themselves, and to find out the 
real reason. 

Friendship rests largely upon admiration. 
Many are not capable of forming great friend- 
ships, because they do not have the qualities 
themselves which attract noble quahties in 
others. If you are crammed with despicable 
qualities, you cannot expect any one to care 
for you. If you are uncharitable, intolerant, 
if you lack generosity, cordiality; if you are 
narrow and bigoted, unsympathetic, you can- 
not expect that generous, large-hearted, noble 
characters will flock around you. 

A happy temperament, a desire to scatter 
joy and gladness, to be helpful to everybody, 
are wonderful aids to friendship. The virtues 



166 The Joys of Living 

that make the heart rich, must come from a 
sweet disposition, a helpful, sunny soul. 
There are people who fling out sunshine and 
joy everywhere they go; they scatter the 
shadows and lighten the sorrow-laden hearts. 

How quickly we should sight the millennium 
if we could only see our brother in the most 
unfortunate human being, if we could always 
look at people as Charity does, who always 
sees a god in the meanest of men, a philan- 
thropist in the stingiest miser, a hero in the 
biggest coward, and who is always saying, 
"Do not condemn that man; there is a god in 
him that something, somebody, may call out." 

If you would be happy cultivate an open 
nature, a kindly, cheerful manner, a joyous 
spirit ; do not be stingy with your praise, your 
cordiality, your helpfulness. Fling out your 
best to every human being at every oppor- 
tunity. Learn to say pleasant things to peo- 
ple about themselves; do generous things, and 
you will be surprised to see how your life will 
enlarge, your soul expand, and your whole 
nature become enriched and ennobled. 

Do not be afraid to tell your friends that 



The Joys of Friendship 167 

you love them. Tell them of their qualities 
that you admire. Do not presume too much 
upon your friendships. Do not allow them to 
be strained too much either by long absences 
without communication, or without seeing 
them when it is possible to do so. 

It is only he who loses his life, who gives it 
royally in kindly, helpful service to others that 
finds it. This is the sowing that gives the 
bountiful harvest. The man who gets all he 
can and gives nothing, knows not real riches. 
He is Hke the farmer who thinks too much of 
his seed-corn to sow it, who hoards it, thinking 
he will be richer for the hoarding. He does 
not give it to the soil because he cannot see the 
harvest in the seed. It is not so much a ques- 
tion of how far we have gotten along in the 
world ourselves, as how many others we have 
helped to get on. 

Perhaps really the richest man who ever 
lived upon this continent was Abraham Lin- 
coln, because he gave himself to his people. 
He did not try to sell his ability to the highest 
bidder. Great fees had no attraction for him. 
Lincoln lives in history because he thought 



168 The Joys of Living 

more of his friends — and all his countrymen 
were his friends — than he did of his pocket- 
book. He gave himself to his country as a 
wise farmer gives his seed to the earth, and 
what a harvest from that sowing! The end of 
it no man shall see. 

One of the saddest phases of our strenuous 
American life is the terrible slaughter of 
friendships by our dollar chasers. 

Is there anything more chilling in this world 
than to have a lot of money but practically no 
friends? What does that thing which we call 
success amount to if we have sacrificed our 
friendships, if we have sacrificed the most 
sacred things in life in getting it? We may 
have plenty of acquaintances, but acquain- 
tances are not friends. There are plenty of 
rich people in this country to-day who scarcely 
know the luxury of real friendship. 
|- There is something that is called friendship 

\ which follows us as long as we are prosperous 
and have anything to give oif money or influ- 
ence, but which forsakes us when we are down. 

Real friendship will follow us into the shad- 
ows, in the dark as well as in the sunshine. 



The Joys of Friendship 169 

The capacity for friendship is a great test 
of character. We instinctively believe in peo- 
ple who are known to stick to their friends 
through thick and thin. It is an indication 
of the possession of splendid qualities. Bad 
people are incapable of great friendships. 
You can generally trust a man who never goes 
back on a friend. People who lack loyalty 
have no capacity for great friendship. 

It is in relation to their effect on character 
that friends must be estimated at their real 
value. Dr. Hillis says that "destiny is deter- 
mined by friendship; fortune is made or 
marred when a youth neglects his compan- 
ions." Character is tinted by the friends to 
which we attach ourselves. We borrow their 
color, whether it be black or white. We ab- 
sorb their qualities, whether they be noble or 
ignoble. "Men become false," says Charles 
Kingsley, "if they live with liars; cynics, if 
they live with scorners; mean, if they live with 
the covetous; affected, if they live with the 
affected; and actually catch the expressions of 
each other's faces." 

We only get what we give. Our friends 



170 The Joys of Living 

are the harvest of our friendship sowing. If 
the seed is poor, the harvest is poor. The man 
who is rich in friendships has sown richly of 
sympathy, of interest, of admiration, of help- 
fulness, of love. 

"Our friends, if they be many and true, can 
add more to the richness and happiness of our 
existence than all the wealth of the Indies." 

''The purpose of friendship," said Seneca, 
"is to have one dearer to me than myself, and 
for the saving of whose life I would gladly lay 
down my own, taking with me the conscious- 
ness that only the wise can be friends; others 
are mere companions." 

"In friendship lies ever a road to happiness. 
It was always my theory," says Ella Wheeler 
Wilcox, "that a broad nature is capable of 
many true friendships. One friend appeals 
to you for one reason, another for some other. 
Friendships are the heart's library. The seri- 
ous friend is the book of philosophy ; the merry 
friend, the book of humor; and there are the 
poet, the author, and the historian still to be 
represented. Even as no book crowds another 



I 



The Joys of Friendship 171 

on our shelves, so no friend should crowd an- 
other in our hearts. 

" 'But you will find friends insincere, and 
friendship but a name,' predicted the pessi- 
mist. *You will suffer disillusionment, and it 
will be more bitter than any friendship can be 
sweet. Keep to yourself, and avoid the 
awakening from a useless dream.' 

*' Still I pursued my course. I formed 
many ties of friendship. Some were broken, 
and I suffered ; but one great truth came home 
to ihy heart, to rest there always. In being 
a true friend, and worthy of true friendship, 
lies the road to real, lasting happiness." 

Shakespeare tells us how we may distinguish 
the true from the false friend: 

He that is thy friend indeed. 

He will keep thee in thy need. 

If thou sorrow, he will weep; 

If thou wake, he cannot sleep. 

Thus of every grief in heart, 

He with thee doth bear a part. / 

These are certain signs to know / 

Faithful friend from flattering foe. / 



XIII 

THE TRAGEDY OF POSTPONED ENJOYMENT 

"The mill will never grind with the water that has passed." 

There was once a very brilliant and charm- 
ing young man who made up his mind that he 
was going to devote the first half of his life to 
the amassing of a million and the balance in 
the unstinted enjoyment of his money. He 
resolved to sacrifice every conflicting desire in 
pursuit of his one unwavering aim — to cut off 
everyihing which could possibly conflict with 
his life purpose. He hushed the great long- 
ing in his heart for music and sacrificed his 
soul's calling for the beautiful, for art, until 
he could get the means for answering all these 
calls in his nature which bade for his attention. 
Later, he felt sure, he would revel in art and 
music. 

But when this young man had made his first 
million he found that his ambition called for 
another million, and he resolved to work a 
little longer and to quit when he had two mil- 

172 



Postponed Enjoyment 173 

lions. When he reached this point, however, 
his ambition had grown to monstrous propor- 
tions and kept calling for more, more. He re- 
solved to break away and to enjoy what he had; 
but he soon found that he was slaving under 
ambition's lash and he kept going on and on, 
making greater sacrifices of his finer nature, 
until one day he caught a glimpse of himself 
in a long mirror. He was shocked at the gray 
hairs and wrinkles, at the bent form. For a 
moment he could not believe his eyes; but the 
truth very soon became painfully evident, and 
he resolved then and there to quit the money 
game and to start on his quest of pleasure. 

But he very soon found that he had lost his 
taste for many of the things which called so 
loudly in his youthful blood. When he began 
to travel, he was surprised to find that the 
great masterpieces of architecture, painting, 
and sculpture, which he had dreamed would 
give him such pleasure, were closed books to 
his mind, because his esthetic faculties had be- 
come so atrophied that they no longer re- 
sponded to stimulus. 

He then resolved that he would make a busi- 



174 The Joys of Living 

ness of surrounding himself with friends for 
the balance of his life. But his friendship 
faculties had also gone out of business for the 
lack of exercise. He had sacrificed his friend- 
ships in pursuit of the dollar. He felt sure 
that music, his first love, had not gone back 
on him and he went to the great centers of 
music to revel in the opera. But he soon found 
that his musical faculties had gone out of busi- 
ness also, atrophied from the lack of exercise, 
and so, in his desperation, he turned from one 
thing to another trying to enjoy himself, but 
he found that even dissipation no longer could 
give him satisfaction; he had lost all power of 
enjoyment, so that his fortune was but a mock- 
ery to him. He had sacrificed youth, health, 
his friends, his taste for music, for art, for 
literature, and he stood like a great sky- 
scraper which had been ravaged by fire — a 
burned-out old man with a fortune, but with 
no power to enjoy it. He had money, but 
nothing else. 

There is little except the form left to indi- 
cate that such men are human. Most of the 
qualities which make for real manhood, the 



Postponed Enjoyment 175 

sweeter, nobler, grander, sublimer qualities, 
which make normal men and women Godlike, 
have been burned out of the life by the dollar 
mania. 

The time will come when these human mon- 
sters with vast fortunes, will be looked upon 
as enemies of all that is highest and noblest 
and sweetest and cleanest in human life. Men 
and women will not always bow down to the 
Golden Calf. 

The only way to be happy is to take advan- 
tage of the httle opportunities that come to us 
to brighten life as we go along. To postpone 
enjoyment day after day and year after year, 
until we get more money or a better position, 
is to cheat ourselves not only of present enjoy- 
ment, but also of the power to enjoy in the 
future. 

One of the greatest tragedies of life is the 
postponement of enjoyment. I think the one 
great regret of most people when nearing the 
end of life is, that they did not live as they 
went along, that they attempted to postpone 
their enjoyment instead of living to the full 
each day as it came. 



176 The Joys of Living 

How often we see young people start out 
in life with small capital and work like slaves 
for years, putting aside every opportunity for 
pleasure or relaxation, denying themselves the 
luxury of an occasional outing, the attendance 
at a theater or concert, a trip to the country or 
the purchase of a coveted book, even postpon- 
ing their reading and general culture until 
they have more leisure, more money! They 
delude themselves with the thought that when 
the following year arrives they will take life 
easier, perhaps indulge in some of these things, 
but when next year comes they think they must 
economize a little longer. Thus they put off 
every enjoyment from year to year. 

They think that next year they will be able 
to send their boy or girl to college ; but the habit 
of saving, the craving for a little more money 
gets the better of them and again they post- 
pone. At length a time comes when they de- 
cide they can afford to indulge in a little 
pleasure. They go abroad, or try to enjoy 
music or works of art, or attempt to broaden 
their minds by reading and studying. But it 
is too late. They have become hopelessly 



Postponed Enjoyment 177 

wedged into the rut the years have made about 
them. The freshness of life has departed. 
Enthusiasm has fled. The fires of ambition 
have died down. The long years of waiting 
have crushed the capacity to enjoy. The 
possessions for which they sacrificed all their 
natural and healthy longings for joy and 
brightness have turned to Dead Sea fruit. 

Such lives are repeated in thousands of 
homes about iis. On every hand we see these 
burned-out hves. 

This country is full of wrecks of people 
who have forfeited their reputations, their 
health, their homes, their vacations, their 
opportunities for travel, for reading, and cul- 
ture, their friends, in fact, traded everything 
that was worth while, for money. Has it 
paid? Thousands of men are nervous wrecks, 
practically friendless and homeless, as far as 
the things we prize most in a home are con- 
cerned, and all because of a desire to scrape 
together a few more dollars. Does it pay? 

Many a man has lost his life while trying to 
save a hat, or an umbrella, or a package in 
front of a trolley car, automobile, or carriage. 



178 The Joys of Living 

"What a foolish thing this is," we say, but 
there are tens of thousands of men in this 
country, who have lost about everything in 
their lives that was worth while, trying to get 
a few more dollars away from somebody else. 

The sacrifices we Americans make, the price 
we pay for our fortunes is something appal- 
ling. Just take a look at the physical and 
mental wrecks we see on every hand. Does it 
pay to sacrifice the very thing for which we 
live, to get together a little more money? 
How often we see hungry, cadaverous men 
with great big pocket-books! They have the 
money but that is about all they have. 

Did you ever think, Mr. Selfish-Greedy 
Man, of what you are losing on your way to 
your wealth? Did you ever realize that while 
you are gloating over the fact that you are 
getting ahead much faster than those about 
you, that you are losing something which is 
infinitely more precious? 

Nature keeps a one-priced store. She lets 
you take whatever you want, but you pay the 
price for it, and you often leave that which is 
infinitely more valuable than what you take. 



Postponed Enjoyment 179 

How many take the money but leave their 
character in exchange! How many swap 
their ability, their education for dollars! 
How many exchange all that is finest, most 
delicate, and sweetest in their natures for that 
which can only give a coarse satisfaction, can 
only feed the animal appetite! While you 
are grasping for more greedy dollars, your 
manliness may be oozing out, your nature may 
be hardening, your sympathy for your kind 
may be drying up, your affections may be 
becoming marbleized. You may find that 
you like coarser things than formerly; that 
refined, cultured, educated, good people do 
not interest you as they once did. You are 
sliding down. Greed has lowered your stand- 
ard. 

I know business men who think they have 
made a great success in life, because they have 
gained a fortune, who would not recognize a 
photograph of themselves taken when they 
started out in the dollar-chasing game, for 
they have exchanged for dollars the most 
valuable things which they possessed at the 
start. Business diplomacy, cunning, have 



180 The Joys of Living 

taken the place of their former simple, open 
straightforwardness. Their motto, "business 
is business," has completely changed their life. 
Business policy has taken the place of princi- 
ple, of conviction. 

The man who cultivates the habit of enjoy- 
ment, who avails himself of the opportunity to 
indulge in some innocent pleasure, to brighten 
and broaden his life by listening to good music 
or looking at rare works of art, studying 
the beauties of nature or reading an in- 
spiring book, will unconsciously find himself 
far ahead in the race for success. He will be 
much less selfish and greedy and far more 
sympathetic and more in touch with his times, 
than the man who postpones all enjoyment 
and relaxation until he has accumulated a for- 
tune. There is nothing more delusive than 
the idea that we are going to do something to- 
morrow which we believe we cannot afford 
to-day. 

Miss Muloch has well said, in one of her 
books: "Nobody will see his own blessings or 
open his heart to enjoy them till the golden 
hour has gone by forever and he finds out too 



Postponed Enjoyment 181 

late all that he might have had and made and 
done." 

How many people make slaves of them- 
selves, pinch and scrimp and practice grind- 
ing economy all through the best years of their 
lives, with the fkm belief that they are getting 
ready for great enjoyment in the future! 

Oh, the waste of life, the precious years lost 
getting ready to enjoy! Oh, the delusion of 
always putting the time of enjoyment in the 
future, forever deferring good things until the 
tissues have hardened and the nerves have lost 
their power to carry agreeable sensations! 
How many people there are who murder their 
capacity for enjoyment and make slaves of 
themselves in trying to hoard up that which 
they might have enjoyed in their younger days, 
and which will be but a mockery to them late 
in life! 

It seems strange that level-headed business 
men, who have been such a success in their 
line, should not be able to see that they cannot 
really enjoy themselves, after retiring from an 
active, busy life, unless they have a broad 
training outside of their specialty. 



182 The Joys of Living 

After all, what are the things which men 
expect to enjoy after they retire? It would 
be a good thing for a man who is thinking of 
retiring to test a few of the things which he 
fancies he is going to find enjoyment in after 
giving up an active life. For example, let 
him go to the opera. The chances are that he 
would be bored to death all through the per- 
formance. How could he expect to enjoy the 
opera if his musical faculties had not been de- 
veloped ? 

Then let him visit the great art galleries. 
The average business man would get tired of 
this sort of thing inside of two days. His 
mind had not been trained in that direction. 
A life-time of training in a business career had 
not developed qualities which would help him 
to appreciate the beauties of art or to measure 
art values, to see the meaning in the great 
masterpieces. 

Then, let him try travel, which he thinks is 
going to be such a delight. He would prob- 
ably get very tired after a few months' wan- 
dering from place to place, living without the 
comforts and luxuries to which he is accus- 
tomed in his own home. 



Postponed Enjoyment 183 

If he knew how to play golf, he might get 
considerable satisfaction out of that, but if he 
overdid it, he would very soon tire of it. He 
might try philanthropic work, helping the 
poor ; but it is likely that, whatever he did, his 
mind would constantly be reverting to and 
longing for his old occupation. The chances 
are that he would very soon weary of playing 
at life. The faculties which had been made 
dominant by so many years of active service, 
would be constantly pulling him towards his 
business or profession. 

The great secret of happiness is to learn to 
enjoy as we go along. Every day should be 
a holiday in the highest sense of the word. No 
matter how busy we are, something should be 
brought into every day's experience which will 
enlarge, broaden, and enrich the mind. 
Every day should add a new layer of beauty 
and joy to life before it gives place to the 
morrow. It was not intended that one part 
of life should be filled with joy and the re- 
mainder be left barren. 

It doesn't pay to look forward to enjoy- 
ment. A recent writer says: "I would as 



184 The Joys of Living 

soon chase butterflies for a living or bottle 
moonshine for a cloudy night. The only way 
to be happy is to take the drops of happiness 
as God gives them to us every day of our lives. 
The boy must learn to be happy while he is 
plodding over his lessons, the apprentice while 
he is learning his trade, the merchant while he 
is making his fortune, or they will be sure to 
miss their enjoyment when they have gained 
what they have signed for." 

"There is an Eastern legend of a powerful 
genius, who promised a beautiful maiden a 
gift of rare value if she would pass through 
a field of corn, and, without pausing, going 
backwards or wandering hither and thither, 
select the largest and ripest ear, — the value of 
the gift to be in proportion to the size and per- 
fection of the ear she should choose. She 
passed through the field, seeing a great many 
well worth gathering, but always hoping to 
find a larger and more perfect one. She 
passed them all by, when, coming to a part of 
the field where the stalks grew more stunted, 
she disdained to take one from these, and so 
through to the other side without having se- 
lected any. 



PosTP'oNED Enjoyment 185 

"This little fable is a faithful picture of 
many lives, which are rejecting the good things 
in their way and within their reach, for some- 
thing before them for which they vainly hope, 
but will never secure. On a dark night and in 
a dangerous place, where the footing is inse- 
cure, a lantern in the hand is worth a dozen 
stars." 

The high school boy thinks that he will be 
happy when he enters college ; the freshman is 
dreaming of the day when he will be a senior; 
the senior, of the time when he will be gradu- 
ated; the graduate lives only for the propi- 
tious hour when he will go into business for 
himself or start in his profession; and the 
young man who has just entered on an active 
career looks forward to the happy time when 
he shall have saved enough money to build 
himself a beautiful house. But by the time he 
has built his fine house he has become so bound 
by his business, or profession, so absorbed in 
the every-day routine, that enjoyment must be 
pushed still further ahead, until he can spare a 
little more time from his business or office, or 
to the indefinite season when he shall retire. 



186 The Joys of Living 

He alone is the happy man who has learned 
to extract happiness, not from ideal conditions, 
but from the actual ones about him. The man 
who has mastered the secret will not wait for 
ideal surroundings ; he will not wait until next 
year, next decade, until he gets rich, until he 
can travel abroad, until he can afford to sur- 
round himself with works of the great masters ; 
but he will make the most possible of what he 
has now. 

"If we would see the color of our future," 
said Canon Farrar, "we must look for it in our 
present; if we would gaze on the star of our 
destiny, we must look for it in our hearts." 

The majority of us go through life with our 
eyes fixed on a distant goal, straining every 
nerve to reach it. On our way we pass inde- 
scribable beauties of earth and sky, and in- 
numerable opportunities to help others over 
rough places, to brighten and beautify the 
commonplace life of every day, — but we see 
them not. Heedless of all that does not point 
directly toward what we consider the winning 
post, we finally arrive at our destination, to 
find — what? We have, perhaps, gained what 



Postponed Enjoyment 187 

we sought : wealth, the secrets of science, fame ; 
we have satisfied our ambition, it may be, — 
but at the cost of all that sweetens, beautifies, 
ennobles, and enriches life. 

The man who has spent all the best years of 
his life chasing dollars and neglecting every- 
thing else, developing one big money gland in 
the base of his brain to secrete dollars, and let- 
ting the upper part of his brain, his ideality, 
his esthetic, his social faculties, his friendship 
faculties, atrophy, and other higher intellectual 
faculties dwindle, cannot expect to enjoy much 
of anything outside of the rut and routine in 
which he has spent his life. He will be lost 
when he gets out of it. 

He will find that, outside of these few tracks 
in his brain — formed by his routine life — ^he 
will get very little satisfaction, because his 
whole brain has not been developed. 

It is sad to see a man who has ground his^ 
very life into his business, coined his brain and 
his very soul into making a fortune, because he 
believes that this will be a panacea for all his 
ills ; who, after he has his fortune in hand, still 
feels the same emptiness, discontent, the same 



188 The Joys of Living 

unsatisfied heart yearnings. Everywhere we 
see men who have led the commercial life so 
long, who have pursued it with such zest and 
such eagerness and grit that they have crushed 
all of the finer sentiments, all the nobler attri- 
butes, out of their natures. They have 
become money-making automatons, getting- 
on-specialists, and they are good for nothing 
else. They are miserable the moment they 
are taken out of this atmosphere. Their for- 
tune made, they have nothing to which to re- 
tire. 

No matter how much money you may have, 
Mr. Rich Man, your enjoyment must come 
from the qualities and faculties which you have 
been exercising the most during your active 
career. If you have been kind and consider- 
ate; if you have been just and generous with 
those who have helped you to make your 
fortune; if you have developed your friend- 
ship faculties, your social qualities ; if you have 
been just and true during your money-making 
period; if there are no dirty dollars in your 
pile; if you have not trampled others down in 
your climb to your fortune, if you have de- 



Postponed Enjoyment 189 

veloped your benevolence and generositj^, you 
will be happy. You will enjoy what you 
have accumulated, but the habits of your past 
hfe, the tendencies of your developments will 
determine the quality of your happiness. 

Is it not strange that when a man has been 
developing his selfish qualities, his greed, his 
grasping nature for a quarter or a half cen- 
tury, and has allowed his friendship faculties, 
his affection, his generosity and all of his noble 
qualities to die from lack of exercise, he should 
expect that the mere possession of a fortune 
could transform all of his life habits and give 
him the enjoyments which could be possible 
only with the highest development of the 
grandest quahties in him, instead of the lowest, 
the animal propensities? 

"We treat our joys as one of my neighbors 
did her choice currants," says a writer. 

" 'Let's have a pie,' said the children, when 
the bushes began to bear. But the mother 
would not hear of using such fine fruit green ; 
it must ripen. When the currants were ripe, 
the children begged them for the table, but the 
mother had decided to save them for jelly. 



190 The Joys of Living 

When jelly-making was proposed, she wanted 
to wait until other work was out of the way, 
and she could *do it as it ought to be done.* 
But lo, when she was fully ready, the sun, the 
birds, and an unexpected storm, had all been 
there before her, and the bushes were bare ! 

"That's the way we do with our blessings 
and gladnesses — the mercies that are 'new 
every morning.' We say, 'Oh, how I could 
enjoy this if — and then we let the trial, fore- 
boding, or trouble crowd it out of place. 
Some day we expect to be ready really to en- 
joy our health, our home, our friends; but who 
can promise us that when that long postponed 
day comes the fruit will still be on the bushes?" 



XIV 

INTELLECTUAL AND ESTHETIC JOYS 

"Milton in his blindness saw more beautiful visions, and 
Beethoven in his deafness heard more heavenly music, than 
most of us can ever hope to enjoy." 

"Had I but two loaves," said Mohammed, "I would sell one 
and buy hyacinths to feed my soul." 

President Eliot once said to his Harvard 
students, "You ought to obtain here the 
trained capacity for mental labor, rapid, in- 
tense, and sustained. It is the main achieve- 
ment of college life to win this mental force, 
this capacity for keen observation, just infer- 
ence, and sustained forethought, and every- 
thing we mean by the reasoning power of man. 
That capacity will be the main source of in- 
tellectual joys and happiness and content 
throughout a long, busy life." 

I believe that the cultivation of the power of 
appreciation would alone increase human hap- 
piness a thousand per cent. Most people con- 
found pleasure and happiness. Pleasure is a 
more temporary enjoyment. It is the soda 

191 



192 The Joys of Living 

water enjoyment compared with the enduring 
satisfaction which comes from the apprecia- 
tion of a good book, or the enduring satisfac- 
tion which comes from the cultivation of the 
intellectual, the unfolding of the mental 
powers. 

There are multitudes of closed doors in an 
untrained mind, which, if opened by education, 
training, and culture, would enrich the life 
wonderfully and would lead to untold happi- 
ness. Who can estimate what it means to a 
human being who is a lover of the beautiful to 
have the door of his esthetic faculties opened! 
How the early cultivation of the love of the 
beautiful would magnify all of the beautiful 
things in the world ! Many people go through 
life beauty-blind because their esthetic eyes 
have never been unsealed. 

We only enjoy what we can appreciate, and 
our appreciations are along the line of our 
training, our experiences, and our hereditary 
tendencies. 

The music which ravishes one person may 
mean nothing to another. A bit of landscape, 
a glorious sunset, a masterpiece of art would 



Intellectual and Esthetic Joys 198 

send a thrill of joy through the heart of a Kus- 
kin; while another person would get no enjoy- 
ment from the same experience. 

Everything in life is loaded with some spe- 
cial meaning, but will only give up its secret 
to the soul that responds to it ; the soul that has 
an affinity for it. Music does not awaken re- 
sponse in the deaf ear but only in those who 
have the musical sense. The sweetest organ 
does not appeal to those who have no apprecia- 
tion of the laws of harmony and melody. It 
only speaks to those who have a spiritual re- 
sponsiveness which can interpret its divine 
meaning. What a treasury of intellectual 
joys, which infinitely surpass all the pleasures 
of the senses or the joys which come from ma- 
terial things, is revealed by the opening of the 
door of thought! No matter how poverty- 
stricken one's environment may be, no matter 
what misfortunes, failures, distressing condi- 
tions surround an individual, it is possible to 
rise out of these discords of an inhospitable en- 
vironment into a heaven of unspeakable joy. 

Think what the opening of this door means 
to the world's shut-ins, invalids, cripples, the 



194 The Joys of Living 

bedridden, and even the unfortunate prison- 
ers! Through thought the wretched criminal 
can rise out of his barred cell. As Lovelace, 
in prison, wrote to Althea: 

stone waUs do not a prison make. 

Nor iron bars a cage, — 
Minds innocent and quiet take 

That for an hermitage. 

A man's intellectual and beauty-creating 
powers were intended as a means of escape 
from the most discouraging, distressing sur- 
roundings. A man's soul was not intended 
to be imprisoned ; nor can it be weighed down 
by unfortunate conditions. No failure, no 
disaster from fire or flood, can keep a human 
being from rising into a paradise of harmony 
and beauty where his soul can revel in a world 
of its own making, equipped, decorated by its 
own creative imagination ; and yet what school 
or college has ever taught the youth the mar- 
velous possibilities of creating his own ideal 
world? 

The study of a flower, of a plant, of a sun- 
set, of a bit of landscape, kindled the flame 
which fired the esthetic soul of Ruskin, opened 



Intellectual and Esthetic Joys 195 

— 7 

up a new world in the great within of himself, 
which not only made his own life a joy/ but 
enabled him to open the door of happiness in 
a vast multitude of other lives. Once open 
this door of appreciation in a human soul atid 
no power in heaven or earth can ever close it 
again, nor limit the possibilities in the dis- 
covery. 

Benjamin West said that it was his mother's 
kiss in appreciation of a little drawing of 
his that made him a painter. It was this 
kiss, he said, that opened up a new world 
to him — the world beautiful. 

*'I too am a painter," cried Correggio when 
his eyes first beheld Raphael's St. Cecilia. 
Many an artist's soul has been set on fire by 
looking upon another's masterpiece, which 
started the conflagration in his esthetic nature, 
which was never quenched. Art is unques- 
tionably one of the purest and highest ele- 
ments in human happiness. "It trains the 
mind through the eye, and the eye through 
the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does 
art color life." 

Beauty is a refining, elevating, saving force. 



196 The Joys of Living 

The love of the beautiful is an indication of 
superiority, of a superior mentality. It indi- 
cates that the possessor has risen out of the 
basement of life into the upper stories where 
he has caught a glimpse of his God. 

All through our youth and even in later life 
new doors to new joys are constantly being 
opened up, often by accident, by the sugges- 
tion of a friend, by the reading of an inspiring 
book or by thinking. As George Herbert 
wrote : 

More servants wait on man 
Than he'll take notice of. 

The pleasures which come from the gratifi- 
cation of the senses, the appetites and pas- 
sions, are as dross compared with the joys 
which are revealed in the wonderful realm of 
thought. The intellectual joys overtop all 
others. 

Whoever has a good mind, well developed, 
ought never to have a dull or stupid moment. 
The man of trained mind is largely independ- 
ent of his environment. If things are dis- 
agreeable, if people bore him, if his surround- 
ings are uncongenial, he can lift himself out 



Intellectual and Esthetic Joys 197 

of it all and retire within the gate of his own 
mind and revel in the exercise of his intellec- 
tual faculties. He can not only retire from 
the most exasperating conditions, but also, in 
an instant, be in an ideal world of his imagina- 
tion. The sources of a trained mind are in- 
exhaustible. 

What luxury, never enjoyed by former 
monarchs of the earth, does a thinker now find 
in books! 

There is no spot on earth so dejecting, 
poverty-stricken, or distressing that a trained 
mind can not only summon the grandest char- 
acters that live in history, but he can also find 
them at their best; they will give him their 
best thoughts, their best moods, and finest 
philosophy. 

What are the pleasures of the palate, the 
pleasures of the senses, the joys that come 
from material wealth, compared with the riches 
possible to the trained mind of the poorest 
creature on earth? 

As Epictetus says, no power can keep us 
from enjoyments of the mind, from intellec- 
tual enjoyments. 



198 The Joys of Living 

The influence which others and conditions 
have upon us is immensely exaggerated. The 
fact is that happiness or misery is very largely 
in our own power. The poorest creature that 
walks the earth has power to summon into his 
presence the greatest poets who will sing to 
him their choicest songs; the greatest histo- 
rians will reveal the past to him; biographers 
will repeat the stories of those who have 
triumphed over want and woe, who have con- 
quered difficulties and won immortal fame. 

The pursuit of education by a soul hungry 
for knowledge, yearning for intellectual 
growth, is the highest kind of pleasure, be- 
cause it gives infinite satisfaction and infinite 
advantage. 

He is the greatest man whose supreme am- 
bition is to make the most of his life, to enrich 
it by self-education, self-culture, self -develop- 
ment and helpful service, until every fiber of 
his being becomes responsive to every good 
and helpful influence in the entire range of 
his environment. 

What a joy people who have had the ad- 
vantages of education and superior opportuni- 



Intellectual and Esthetic Joys 199 

ties for culture and refinement may find in 
helping others who have been deprived of 
these opportunities, and whose souls hunger 
for the richer, fuller life to gain them. 

One of the grandest sights in the world is 
that of an adult seizing every opportunity to 
make up for the loss of early educational ad- 
vantages, pouring his very soul into his spare 
moments and evenings, trying to make him- 
self a larger, fuller, completer man. 

Opportunities for self -improvement sur- 
round us, and in this day of cheap books, free 
libraries, and evening schools, there can be no 
good excuse for neglect to use the facilities for 
mental growth. 

There is nothing else that will give you 
greater satisfaction in after years than the 
forming of such systematic habits of self -cul- 
ture early in life as to make your self -improve- 
ment processes automatic. 

There never was a time in the history of 
the world when education was worth so much 
as to-day, when knowledge adds so much 
power, contributes so much to happiness. 

What a golden opportunity confronts you 



200 The Joys of Living 

for coining your bits of leisure into knowledge 
that will mean growth of character, promotion, 
advancement, power, riches that no accident 
can take from you, no disaster annihilate ! 

There is a divine hunger in every normal 
being for self -expansion, a yearning for growth 
or enlargement. Beware of stifling this crav- 
ing of nature for self-unfoldment. 

Man was made for growth; to realize poise 
of mind, peace, satisfaction. It is the object, 
the explanation, of his being. To have an 
ambition to grow larger and broader every 
day, to push the horizon of one's ignorance 
a little further away, to become a little richer 
in knowledge, a little wiser, and more of a 
man — ^that is an ambition worth while. 

What you can abstract from life, is just a 
question of how you train your mind and form 
your habits of thought. It is just a question 
of your ability to extract beauty, utility, and 
joy from your environment, which you think 
is so commonplace, dry, lean, and void of 
beauty. If you think your life has so little 
for you, you have not learned the secret of 
extracting from life its joys, beauties, truth. 



Intellectual and Esthetic Joys 201 

and loveliness. The soul that loves beauty 
can feast on it everywhere. There is not a 
nook or corner in the universe where it does 
not exist. Think of the marvels which the 
microscope reveals, or the wonderful mysteries 
which the telescope brings to us from the 
depths of the universe to the unaided eye ! 

A great admirer of Agassiz once sent him a 
check for one thousand dollars so that he could 
travel abroad and collect some valuable ma- 
terial and bring home precious truths for his 
wonderful science. But Agassiz wrote him 
that he proposed to spend his vacation in his 
own back-yard, and his great mind found even 
there remnants of fossil remains and other 
discoveries which made valuable additions to 
science. The mind which could profitably 
spend days upon the scale of a fish, and hours 
studying and reading the history of a grain of 
sand from the seashore, and the history of an 
ocean pebble, could find material enough in 
the humblest environment for the profitable 
study of a lifetime. 

The possibihties of happiness which we have 
discovered and utiUzed are to the human mind 



202 The Joys of Living 

what the little corn-patch of the Indians was 
to the vast wealth of this great continent. The 
things we never use because we were never 
trained to see or enjoy them, would, if utilized, 
revolutionize our lives. What the most in- 
telligent of us use is as nothing compared to 
what we lose. 

'No matter which way we look we can see 
marvels of design, of possible utility and of 
beauty, which a whole lifetime of study could 
never exhaust. 

"To watch the corn grow, or the blossoms 
set; to draw hard breath over ploughshare or 
spade; to read, to think, to love, to pray, 
these," says Ruskin, "are the things that make 
men happy." 

We should more fully appreciate our op- 
portunities could we realize what a blind per- 
son with a love of the beautiful would give just 
for a glimpse of the marvelous world, which 
is all shut out from him and free to us. What 
would he not give if he could just have his eyes 
opened for a few months and be allowed to 
travel over this beautiful earth and drink in 
the world's beauties? Just to be able to see 



Intellectual and Esthetic Joys 203 

the flower, to get one glimpse of the landscape 
which we see so often that it makes almost no 
impression upon us, what would it not mean 
to one of these poor blind creatures! The 
ability to look into a sea of human faces, to 
watch the play of thought, sentiment, and 
mood upon their countenances would afford 
infinite pleasure and joy to them, and yet, 
how little we ourselves appreciate this privi- 
lege, 

Luther said that paradise might apply to 
the whole world — and why not? There is not 
a corner of the Universe which the great Lover 
of the Beautiful has not decorated with more 
marvelous beauties than any human being ever 
decorated anything. In the far-away places 
where no human being has ever trod, there are 
beauties of plant life, of flowers, of crystal for- 
mation in rocks, beauties of birds and beast, 
of landscape, which no human eye hath ever 
seen, proving that the great Author of the 
Universe is a lover of **uncontained immortal 
beauty." What a pity that every child should 
not be taught to read "God's handwriting in 
beauty" in everything — everywhere! 



204 The Joys of Living 

Suppose the greatest human being that ever 
lived could be endowed with omnipotence, the 
omniscience, the magic power and the wisdom, 
to create a world which in every particular 
would be a paradise, a world which would 
be absolutely perfect in every respect; to 
evolve a plant life which would give the 
greatest possible joy and satisfaction to human 
beings; create fruits, vegetables and all else 
which would give the most intense pleasure to 
the human palate. In other words, suppose 
this human being should be endowed with the 
Godlike qualities to create a world, which could 
satisfy every yearning and every longing of 
his soul, could he equal the marvelous creations 
v/hich have already been provided for every 
human being? 

There is not a single human desire, not a 
longing which has not been provided for in 
this marvelous creation ; and why is it that our 
lives are so very lean, so poverty-stricken, so 
pinched, so limited, so blighted, when they 
might be so grand, so magnificent, so sublime? 

The love of the beautiful is a fundamental 
quality of the human mind. It first manifests 



Intellectual and Esthetic Joys 205 

itself in the rude decoration of the savage, and 
becomes an increasing passion with the prog- 
ress of civihzation. Merely to exist was not 
the object of man's creation, but to live sub- 
limely, magnificently, to live like a king, not 
like a manikin, not like a starved, stunted, 
burlesque of the real man God intended. 

To the man who has developed his intellec- 
tual and esthetic faculties there is untold joy 
in travel. 

Ruskin saw paradise everywhere he went. 
Every plant, every flower, every new specimen 
of vegetable life, every sunset, every bit of 
landscape, were to him God's hieroglyphics, by 
which he could learn the mind of the great 
Artist of the beautiful. 

Suppose a John Ruskin were to travel the 
world over with one whose brain had been 
pinched, whose intellectual life had been 
stunted and starved by a monotonous, routine 
life work! Think of the difference between 
what these men would derive from such a tour 
— one, a man who sees God's handwriting in 
every leaf, a divine message in every flower, 
whose very soul leaps for joy at the sight of 



206 The Joys of Living 

every bit of beautiful scenery, whose soul is 
all aglow in a sunset, who is entranced by 
everything that God made, and the other, a 
man whose deadened faculties do not respond 
to the stimulus of beautiful scenery, or strange 
lands and peoples, or works of art ! Only the 
brain cells he has used in his narrow occupa- 
tion have been developed; all of the others 
lie dormant, went out of business long ago, 
from the lack of exercise and stimulus. Travel 
to such a man means very little. 

Surrounded as we are with the real sources 
of happiness, costless, limitless, many of us 
allow our finer senses to atrophy and turn to 
money as the primary source of happiness. 
But putting money into the purse is pretty 
poor sort of business compared with putting 
beauty into the life, cultivating the sublime, 
the magnificent in our natures. Cementing 
precious friendships, cultivating those we love, 
pushing the horizon of ignorance farther and 
farther away from us, opening up the intel- 
lectual life, enlarging the mind, unfolding the 
immortal sides of our being, — all these afford 
infinitely greater pleasure than chasing the 
dollar or titillating the senses. 



Intellectual and Esthetic Joys 207 

The joy of living, therefore, hes not without 
us but within us. It is the power to appre- 
ciate, to make our own, the intellectual and 
esthetic joys that are free to all, which raises 
us from the multitude, who, owning more than 
we, are like "dumb driven cattle," that walk 
and sleep and feed but know only the things 
that minister to the grosser appetites. 

From the man who has been trained to think, 
to extract the honey of life from all sorts of 
sources, the man who has been trained to use 
his ears, and see things, the mere lack of money 
can take little away. Circumstances have 
scant power to rob him if he has a good mind, 
good health, and all his senses are intact. He 
can manage to become very rich in his person- 
ality, a millionaire mentally, although a pauper 
in material things. He may be a billionaire in 
cheerfulness, in usefulness, and in nobility of 
character. The power of material things, to 
bestow happiness, to bring joy into the life is 
tremendously exaggerated. The right mental 
attitude, the trained mind, will bring to us the 
best there is in the universe. 



XV 

"reading maketh a full man" 

Only three things are necessary to make life happy: the 
blessing of God, books, and a friend. — Lacordaire. 

If the crowns of the world were laid at my feet in exchange 
for my love of reading, I would spurn them all. — Fenelon. 

"In a certain village," Sir John Herschel 
tells us, ''a blacksmith got hold of Richard- 
son's novel 'Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded,' 
and used to sit on his anvil in the long summer 
evenings and read it aloud to a large and at- 
tentive audience. It is by no means a short 
book, but they eagerly listened to it all. At 
length, when the happy turn of fortune ar- 
rived, which brings the hero and heroine to- 
gether and sets them living long and happily 
according to the most approved rules, the con- 
gregation were so delighted as to raise a great 
shout, and, procuring the church keys, actually 
set the parish bells ringing." 

Good books are lengthening and brighten- 
ing the lives of a multitude of people. Per- 

208 



"Reading Maketh a Full Man" 209 

haps nothing else has such power to hf t 
the poor out of his poverty, the wretched out 
of his misery, to make the burden-bearer for- 
get his burden, the sick his suffering, the sor- 
rowing his grief, the down-trodden his degra- 
dation, as books. They are friends to the 
lonely, companions to the deserted, joy to the 
joyless, good cheer to the disheartened, a 
helper to the helpless. They bring light into 
darkness and sunshine into shadow. 

How many a wretched one, poor and for- 
saken perhaps by the world, has found solace 
in his poverty and a refuge from his want and 
woe, a pleasant substitute for his gloomy 
thoughts, as he has delved like a prince in some 
great book! 

We hear a great deal about the increased 
cost of living, but never in history could poor 
people get so much of the life essentials, and 
even the things that were luxuries a short time 
ago, for so httle money, as to-day. The prod- 
ucts of the greatest minds that have ever 
lived, were never so cheap. Copies of the 
great masterpieces of literature, which a cen- 
tury ago were only within the reach of the rich. 



210 The Joys of Living 

are now often found in the poorest homes. 
The printing-press has brought the greatest 
hterary wealth within the reach of the poorest 
people. 

How many men and women there are, who 
think their lives have been failures; who feel 
dejected, lonely, and shut out from society, 
and pity themselves because they have not been 
able to see the world, or mix with people who 
have done things worth while! Little do 
these realize that they have right in their own 
homes, or can easily obtain for a small sum of 
money, the most precious, the richest sort of 
friends, guests who would have been more than 
welcome in the palaces of princes! 

Why mourn because your poverty, your lack 
of chance in life, cuts you oiF from the society 
of those who have been more fortunate, when 
without the exertion of changing your clothing 
for a social function, you can spend the even- 
ing with the kings and queens of the earth, the 
greatest characters; can without embarrass- 
ment or timidity hold communion with the 
greatest minds that have ever lived ! 

"The purest pleasures I have ever known," 



"Reading Maketh a Full Man" 211 

says Richard Cobden, "are those accessible to 
you all; it is in the calm intercourse with in- 
telligent minds, and, in the communion with 
the departed great, through books, by our own 
firesides." 

Isolation, separation from others, whether 
it be caused by physical weakness or by an un- 
fortunate disposition or unsocial nature, is one 
of the greatest sources of unhappiness; but 
through books one need not be alone but can 
live intimately with the greatest personalities 
the world has known. 

"Books are delightful society," said Glad- 
stone; "if you go into a room and find it full 
of books — even without taking them from 
their shelves they seem to speak to you, to bid 
you welcome. They seem to tell you that they 
have got something inside their covers that will 
be good for you, and that they are willing and 
desirous to impart to you." 

It is said that Bunyan during the years he 
was in jail, became so absorbed in some of the 
characters in "Pilgrim's Progress," and was so 
carried away with them, that he would often 
fall upon his knees and shed tears of joy in his 



212 The Joys or Living 

ecstasies. His imagination transformed his 
prison into a Palace Beautiful. The jail 
walls did not confine his mind or his imagi- 
nation. He lived in the town of Vanity Fair; 
he climbed the delectable mountain. Stone 
walls do not a prison make for such a spirit of 
happiness as Bunyan possessed. 

Think of this wonderful man imprisoned for 
twelve years, and yet, in spite of all he suf- 
fered, producing a book only second to the 
Bible! 

"I have friends," said Petrarch, "whose 
society is extremely agreeable to me; they are 
of all ages and of every country. They have 
distinguished themselves both in the cabinet 
and in the field, and obtained high honors for 
their knowledge of the sciences. It is easy to 
gain access to them, for they are always at my 
\service, and I admit them to my company and 
dismiss them from it whenever I please. They 
are never troublesome, but immediately an- 
swer every question I ask them. Some teach 
me how to live, and others how to die. Some 
by their vivacity drive away my cares and ex- 
hilarate my spirits, while others give fortitude 



"Reading Maketh a Full Man" 213 

to my mind and teach me the important 
lesson, — how to restrain my desires and de- 
pend wholly on myself. They open to me, in 
short, the various avenues of all the arts and 
sciences, and upon their information I may 
safely rely in all emergencies. In return for 
all their services they only ask me to accom- 
modate them with a convenient chamber in 
some corner of my humble habitation where 
they may repose in peace; for these friends 
are more delighted by the tranquillity of 
retirement than with the tumults of soci- 
ety." 

Many of our choicest friends live between 
the leaves of our favorite books. We become 
more intimate with them than with any living 
characters. We are not afraid to open our 
hearts to one of them without reserve. There 
need be no clash of opinion. Our communion 
is heart to heart. 

People are often ashamed to be seen with 
some persons with whom they desire to associ- 
ate, and they are often secretive about some 
of their friendships, but they are frank in 
choosing friends in books. Hence, the vol- 



214 The Joys of Living 

untary selection of book companions is very 
important and we can quickly estimate a man's 
character by his choice. They indicate the 
degree of his culture, his good taste and re- 
finement or his coarseness and vulgarity. The 
books we collect are confessions of what we 
like and of what we are. 

Many people make reading a means of in- 
tellectual dissipation. They do not read to 
learn, or to improve themselves, but merely to 
kill time, and for amusement. 

Reading, without some sort of a purpose, is 
demoralizing. We read for recreation, but 
thoughtless reading without any purpose, ex- 
cept that of a means of intellectual dissipation, 
is always demoralizing. It brings on a form 
of ennui, and makes one restless and discon- 
tented instead of happy and contented. To 
read profitably one must keep these three 
things in mind: intention, attention, and 
retention. It is worth noting that the word 
retention comes from the Latin retces, a net. 
Nets are made so that the smaller and worth- 
less fishes may slip through the meshes. So 
the mind trained to retention allows trivial 



•Reading Maketh a Full Man" 215 



things to escape and holds in memory only- 
things of greater importance. 

To read constantly for the sake of some- 
thing to think of is to stultify one's self. 
Bacon said, "Reading maketh a full man." 
But there are different sorts of fullness, and 
that of the idle glutton is not to be com- 
mended. Let the dissipated reader ponder 
the wise words of Milton: 

Who reads 
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not 
A spirit and judgment equal or superior. 
Uncertain and unsettled still remains — 
Deep versed in books, and shallow in himself. 

If you are anxious to improve yourself, read 
books which tend to elevate your taste, refine 
your imagination, clarify your ambition, raise 
your ideals. 

Read books of power, books which stir the 
very depths of your being to some purpose. 
Read books which make you resolve to do and 
be a little better; to try a little harder to be 
somebody and to do something in the world. 
Fifteen minutes' concentrated reading every 
day would carry one through the great authors 
in about five years. 



216 The Joys of Living 

Newell Dwight Hillis says: "One barrier 
that has helped to hold back the happiness that 
ought to sweep over our land like an advan- 
cing flood is found in modern literature. 
Man's mental mood must needs reflect the 
books and philosophy he reads. If former 
generations were happy in their garrets it was 
because their favorite authors were optimists, 
who saw life's good, indeed, yet also saw that 
evil, in its heart, was also good. The great 
authors, from Homer and Paul down to 
Shakespeare, have been the children of ex- 
ultant joy as well as genius; all were large- 
natured, sweet, wholesome, healthy, and 
happy." 

In his book, "The Pleasures of Life," Sir 
John Lubbock gives a list of carefully chosen 
books, "which so whet the mental appetite," 
says a writer, "that one wishes immediately to 
abandon even the glories of the earth, the com- 
panionship of delightful living friends, the ex- 
citements of travel, the pursuits of engaging 
avocations, to get to a quiet corner and for the 
time live in them." 

Books make it possible for every person 



"Reading Maketh a Full Man" 217 

born into the world to begin where the previous 
generation left off. Every person born finds 
everything brought up to date for him. The 
author seems to say to the newcomer into the 
world, "I present to you in this volume the in- 
vestigation of my lifetime — ^in science, in liter- 
ature, in art." 

One gives the results of a lifetime study of 
bird hf e. Another brings his lifetime study of 
insects, another of animals, another his travels, 
and so on. For a few pennies a newcomer on 
the earth may reap the fruit in art or books 
of a whole lifetime. Instead of going over 
the ground himself, he finds that multitudes 
have been gathering for him the results of 
their life's endeavor in their special line. For 
a small sum we purchase what may have cost 
fortunes, untold sacrifices, and struggles with 
poverty and hardship. 

A great help in obtaining the knowledge 
which sinks in, springs up, and bears efficient 
fruit, comes from owning good books. Much 
of the wisdom which people possess probably 
comes from things which they read and re- 
read many times in their schoolbooks. The 



218 The Joys of Living 

sense of hurry engendered by the knowledge 
that a book must be returned to the public 
library at a certain time is extremely detrimen- 
tal, if not fatal, to that absorption of its mean- 
ing from which alone can come power or 
restful pleasure. Therefore, have a hbraiy of 
your own. It does not need to be a large li- 
brary. Nearly all America's greatest men 
and women read but few books when young, 
but these few they read so exhaustively, and 
digested so thoroughly, that their spirit, pur- 
pose, and principles became a part of the 
readers' very souls, the dynamos which moved 
their lives to great ends. 

The reading* of good fiction is a splendid 
imagination exerciser and builder. It stimu- 
lates it by suggestions, powerfully increases 
its picturing capacity, and keeps it fresh and 
vigorous and wholesome ; and a wholesome im- 
agination plays a very great part in every 
sane and worthy life. 

Aside from reading fiction, books of travel 
are of the best for mental diversion ; then there 
are nature studies, and science and poetry, — 
all affording wholesome recreation, all of an 



''Reading Maketh a Full Man" 219 

uplifting character, and some of them opening 
up study specialties of the highest order, as in 
the great range of books classified as Natural 
Science. 

The reading and study of poetry is much 
like the interest one takes in the beauties of 
natural scenery. Much of the best poetry is 
indeed a poetic interpretation of nature. 
Whittier and Longfellow and Bryant lead 
their readers to look on nature with new eyes, 
as Ruskin opened the eyes of Henry Ward 
Beecher. 

Among books, the writings of the poets have 
perhaps furnished the greatest inspiration to 
the human mind. Poetry has been defined 
as the ''highest expression of the highest 
thought." 

"Poetry," says Shelley, "awakens and en- 
larges the mind itself by rendering it the 
receptacle of a thousand unapprehended com- 
binations of thought. Poetry hfts the veil 
from the hidden beauty of the world, and 
makes familiar objects be as if they were not 
familiar." 

Nor must the philosophers be overlooked. 



220 The Joys of Living 

The readers who do not know the Concord 
philosopher, Emerson, and the great writers of 
antiquity, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and 
Plato, have pleasures to come. 

''When I consider what some books have 
done for the world, and what they are doing, 
how they keep up our hope, awaken new 
courage and faith, soothe pain, give an ideal 
of life to those whose homes are hard and cold, 
bind together distant ages and foreign lands, 
create new worlds of beauty, bring down truths 
from heaven, — I give eternal blessings for this 
gift," says an appreciative reader. 

How books extend our mental horizon and 
broaden our limitation! Through them the 
centuries give up their choicest treasure to us. 
The wisdom of the greatest minds that have 
ever lived, is ours for the asking. No matter 
how poor, or how circumscribed our condition 
may be, books can quickly take us out of our 
close environment into any country or people. 
All the nations lay their best at our feet, and 
for a mere trifle. 

"No entertainment is so cheap as reading, 
nor any pleasure so lasting." Good books 



"Reading Maketh a Full Man" 221 

elevate the character, purify the taste, take the 
attractiveness out of low pleasures^ and Hft us 
upon a higher plane of thinking and Uving. 

Carlyle said that a collection of books is a 
university. What a pity that the thousands 
of ambitious, energetic men and women who 
missed their opportunities for an education at 
the school age, and feel crippled by their loss, 
fail to catch the significance of this, fail to 
realize the tremendous cumulative possibilities 
of .that great life-improver, that admirable 
substitute for a college or university education 
— reading. 

The following story shows how easily, with 
a Kttle self-denial, one may collect a library: 

"How can you afford all these books?" 
asked a young man, calhng upon a friend; "I 
can't seem to find spare change for even the 
leading magazines." 

"Oh, that library is only my *one cigar a 
day,' " was the reply. 

"What do you mean?" inquired the visitor. 

"Mean? Just this: when you advised me to 
indulge in an occasional cigar, several years 
ago, I had been reading about a young fellow 



222 The Joys of Living 

who bought books with money that others 
would have burned in cigars, and I thought I 
would try to do the same. You may remem- 
ber that I said I should allow myself one cigar 
a day?" 

"Yes, I recall the conversation, but don't 
quite see the connection." 

"Well, I never smoked, but I put by the 
price of a five-cent cigar every day; and, as 
the money accumulated, I bought books, — ^the 
very books you see." 

"You don't mean to say that your books 
cost no more than that! Why, there are dol- 
lars' worth of them." 

"Yes, I know there are. I had six years 
more of my apprenticeship to serve when you 
advised me 'to be a man.' I put by the money, 
which, at five cents a day, amounted to $18.25 
a year, or $109,50 in six years. I keep those 
books by themselves, as a result of my appren- 
ticeship cigar-money; and, if you'd done as I 
did, you would by this time have saved many, 
many more dollars than I have, and would 
have been better off in health and own a li- 
brary besides." 



"Reading Maketh a Full Man" 223 

Surround yourself with good books. There 
is something in the very atmosphere of books 
which is helpful and inspiring. One seems to 
absorb culture from the presence of books and 
contact with them. The mind changes; our 
ideals enlarge, when we are surrounded by 
good books. One can learn to love books, and 
derive much pleasure from them, too, by con- 
stantly being in their presence, and getting 
acquainted with them. 

''An unread man," says Richard Le Gal- 
lienne, "has only to read a very few of the 
great representative novels to find where he 
stands, what his tastes are likely to be, and 
what it is that he is looking for in books. . . . 
A living library is not to be deliberately made. 
You cannot plan it out on paper and then buy 
it en bloc. Of course you can make a collec- 
tion of books in that way, but a collection of 
books is not a Mbrary. A bookstore is a col- 
lection of books, but it is not a Hbrary. A 
library is an organism developing side by side 
with the mind and character of its owner. It 
is the house of his spirit and is thus furnished 
progressively in accordance with the progress 
of his mental life." 



224. The Joys of Living 

Cicero described a home without books as a 
body without a soul. 

Although Macaulay had most everything 
that wealth, rank, and genius could give, yet 
he always preferred the company of his books 
to that of the greatest men and women of his 
time. 

Gibbon declared that he would not exchange 
his love of reading for all the treasures of 
India. 

"Books are both our luxuries and our daily 
bread. They have become to our lives and 
happiness prime necessities. They are our 
trusted favourites, our guardians, our confi- 
dential advisers, and the safe consumers of 
our leisure. They cheer us in poverty, and 
comfort us in the misery of affluence." 

It is of immense importance to teach chil- 
dren to avoid unpleasant, disagreeable, soul- 
harrowing books. Keep them from reading 
morbid stories, morbid descriptions of crime 
and misery in the newspapers. Do not let 
these black pictures etch their hideous forms 
into their tender, sensitive minds. 

Many people who have lived troubled lives 



"Reading Maketh a Full Man" 225 

have regarded their love for books, their 
library, as their most precious possession — 
their Heaven upon earth. In their books 
they find solace, comfort, peace of mind, 
which passeth all understanding. 

Whenever things go wrong with us and we 
are weary of Hfe, when everything seems to 
bore us, when we are too tired and too dis- 
tressed and too weary to work, we can call to 
our side the greatest writers that have ever 
lived and find rest and refreshment. The 
humblest citizen can summon Shakespeare or 
Emerson to his hovel, and he will give him his 
best. 

Oliver Goldsmith once said: "The first 
time I read an interesting book, it is to me 
just as if I had gained a new friend; when I 
read over a book I have perused before, it re- 
sembles the meeting with an old one." 

It might be truly said that those who have 
no friendship for books can live only a half 
life. 

One who has but one hundred choice books 
in his library has one hundred doors each of 
which opens on prospects of infinite joy. 



XVI 

THE ALCHEMY OF A CHEERFUL MIND 

"A real power of life lies in smiles. Smiles are the only- 
potentials known that move things whether they intend to 
move or not." 

"What is an optimist?" asked a fanner's 
boy. 

"Well, John," replied his father, "you know 
I can't give ye the dictionary meanin' of that 
word any more'n I can of a great many others. 
But I've got a kind of an idee what it means. 
Probably you don't remember your Uncle 
Henry; but I guess if there ever was an opti- 
mist, he was one. Things was always coming 
out right with Henry, and especially anything 
hard that he had to do; it wasn't a-goin' to be 
hard, — 'twas jest sort of solid-pleasant. 

"Take hoein' corn, now. If anything ever 
tuckered me out, 'twas hoein' corn in the hot 
sun. But in the field, 'long about the time I 
begim to lag back a little, Henry he'd look up 
an' say: 

" 'Good, Jim! When we get these two rows 

226 



A Cheerful Mind 227 

hoed, an' eighteen more, the piece'll be half 
done.' An' he'd say it in such a kind of a 
cheerful way that I couldn't 'a' ben any more 
tickled if the piece had been all done, — an' the 
rest would go light enough. 

"But the worst thing we had to do — hoein' 
corn was a picnic to it — ^was pickin' stones. 
There was no end to that on our old farm, if 
we wanted to raise anything. When we wa'n't 
hurried and pressed with somethin' else, there 
was always pickin' stones to do; an' there 
wa'n't a plowin' but what brought up a fresh 
crop, an' seems as if the pickin' had all to be 
done over again. 

"Well, you'd 'a' thought, to hear Henry, 
that there wa'n't any fun in the world like pick- 
in' stones. He looked at it in a different way 
from anybody I ever see. Once, when the 
corn was all hoed, and the grass wa'n't fit to 
cut yet, an' I'd got all laid out to go fishin', 
and father he up and set us to pickin' stones 
up on the west piece, an' I was about ready to 
cry, Henry he says : 

" 'Come on, Jim. I know where there's lots 
of nuggets.' 



228 The Joys of Living 

"An' what do you s'pose, now? That boy 
had a kind of a game that that there field was 
what he called a plasser mining field; and he 
got me into it, and I could 'a' sworn I was 
in Californy all day,^-=we had such a good 
time. 

" 'Only,' says Henry, after we'd got through 
the day's work, 'the way you get rich with 
these nuggets is to get rid of 'em, instead of 
keepin' em.' 

''That somehow didn't strike my fancy, but 
we'd had play instead of work, anyway, an' a 
great lot of stones had been rooted out of that 
field. 

"An', as I said before, I can't give ye any 
dictionary definition of optimism; but if your 
Uncle Henry wa'n't an optimist, I don't know 
what one is." 

An optimistic mind is a sort of a prism 
which brings the rainbow colors out of things 
which are invisible to the pessimist. 

The prism does not make the colors in the 
spectrum. They are everywhere in the light 
before our eyes. Our light is made up of all 
the different colors of the rainbow. The 



A Cheerful Mind 229 

prism merely separates them and makes them 
visible to the eye. 

Every man should have an optimistic lens 
which can distinguish the uncommon in the 
common, which can detect all the beauties 
there are in his environment. 

It is wicked to go about among one's fellow 
men with a face which indicates that life has 
been a disappointment to you instead of a 
glorious joy. 

What a pitiable thing to see people go 
through Ufe peddhng vinegar, radiating bit- 
terness, finding fault, and seeing only the 
ugly; worrying, fretting, cynical, and pessi- 
mistic! Some people have a genius for 
seeing only the crooked, the evil, and disagree- 
able. Pessimism is always a destroyer, never 
a producer. 

We need more joy peddlers, and sunshine 
makers, more people who refuse to see the 
ugly, the bitter, and the crooked; who see the 
world of beauty and perfection which God has 
made, and not the world which sin and dis- 
cord and disease have made. We need peo- 
ple who see the man and woman whom God 



230 The Joys of Living 

has made — pure, clean, sane, healthy — and not 
the ugly, diseased, discordant dwarf, the bur- 
lesque of man, which wrong thinking, wrong 
living, and sin have made. 

Oh, what riches live in a sunny soul! 

Take joy with you; cling to her, no matter 
where you go or what you do. It i^ your 
lubricating oil which would prevent the jars, 
the discords, and shut out the sorrows of life. 
What a heritage is a smiling face, — to be able 
to fling out sunshine everywhere one goes, to 
scatter the shadows and to lighten sorrowing 
hearts; to have the power to send cheer into 
despairing souls through a sunny and radiant 
disposition ! 

The abihty to radiate sunshine is a greater 
power than beauty or wealth. If you would 
do the maximum of which you are capable, 
keep the mind filled with sunshine, with 
beauty and truth, with cheerful, uplifting 
thoughts. Bury everything that makes you 
unhappy and discordant, everything that 
cramps your freedom, that worries you, be- 
fore it buries you. 

Probably many readers of this book have 



A Cheerful Mind 231 

heard of "Smiling Joe," the optimistic Uttle 
cripple at the Sea Breeze Home on Long 
Island. He was kept strapped to a board 
during four years of his life on account of 
severe spinal trouble. Yet he was the hap- 
piest child in the hospital, and, in spite of be- 
ing strapped to his cruel board all these years, 
radiated more sunshine than anybody else in 
the home. 

The test of character is one's ability to re- 
main cheerful, serene, hopeful, even under 
fire. It is easy to be bright and optimistic 
when one enjoys robust health and is prosper- 
ous, but it requires heroic qualities to be so 
when poor health mocks ambition, and we are 
surrounded by disheartening conditions. 

We want cheerful men and women, with 
more hopefulness and laughter! We have 
enough long and sour faces, enough of chilling 
looks and exclusive manners. Cheerfulness is 
one of the great miracle workers of the world. 
It reenforces the whole man, doubles and 
trebles his power and gives a new meaning to 
life. No man has failed until he has lost his 
cheerfulness, his optimistic outlook upon life. 



232 The Joys of Livi:n'g 

Give me the man who, like Emerson, be- 
lieves there is a remedy for every wrong, a sat- 
isfaction for every longing soul; the man who 
believes the best of everybody, and who sees 
beauty and loveliness where others see ugliness 
and disgust. Give me the man who believes 
that there is a great, underlying, beneficent 
principle running through the world, a cur- 
rent running heavenward; who believes that 
there is a great beneficent cause which brings 
things out infinitely better than we can plan 
them ourselves; who does not try to regulate 
the universe, but simply trusts this great 
divine principle. Give me the man who be- 
lieves in the ultimate triumph of truth over 
error, of harmony over discord, of love over 
hate, of purity over vice, of light over dark- 
ness, of life over death. Such men are the 
true nation builders. 

The man who has learned to surround him- 
self with an atmosphere of peace and har- 
mony, no matter what discord and darkness 
are in his environment, is the man who has 
learned the last lesson of culture. 

And, after all, this peace and serenity must 



A Cheerful Mind 233 

come by controlling the thought and by know- 
ing that only the real, the good, is true, because 
God made it, and that everything else is false 
because He did not make it. 

When we learn that discord, disease, and all 
that worries and frets and makes us anxious 
are only the absence of harmony, and that they 
are not realities of being, that God never made 
them, and hence they must be false, then we 
shall learn the secret of real harmonious liv- 
ing, we shall learn the secret of scientific living. 
Then we can throw the best of ourselves into 
the most unfortunate environment, we can 
fling out the fragrance and beauty of serene 
and balanced lives, even in the most discord- 
ant surroundings. Think the good; drive 
away evil; keep the mind so filled with the 
good, the beautiful and the true, that the oppo- 
sites will find no affinity there. If there is no 
music in me, no affinity for justice, for the 
good, the beautiful and the true, then I may 
not appreciate them in my hfe. If there is no 
Emerson in me, then his works will not find a 
response in my soul. If there is no love of the 
beautiful in my soul, then I shall meet no 
beauty anywhere in the world. 



234 The Joys of Living 

When we learn that there is enough divinity 
in us to conquer all the inharmony, to swallow 
all the discord that would mar the great di- 
vine symphony, then we shall be living to some 
purpose. This knowh dge is the magic which 
will transform the hovel into a palace. 

Deacon Erown was always noted for ex- 
pressing his gratitude in the prayer meetings, 
for some special blessing, even though all sorts 
of misfortunes and hard luck had followed him 
all his hfe, and he had lost everything he had 
ever had — every member of his family, his 
home, his property, his health. 

His friends wondered what he could find to 
be grateful for. He seemed just as cheerful 
and optimistic as ever. ''Waal," he said, 
"even if I've lost everything in the world, I'm 
still thanking the Lord I've two teeth left and 
one opposite t'other." 

A man traveling in the West on a crowded 
train sat in the seat with an old lady, who 
every little while would take a bottle from her 
satchel, hold it out of the window and shake 
something out of it which looked like salt. 
The man finally asked her what she was doing 



A Cheerful Mind 235 

this for. "Oh," she said, "these are flower 
seeds. I have made it a rule for many years 
when traveHng to scatter seeds by the railroad 
tracks, especially in crossing the desert and in 
unattractive parts of the country. Do you 
see those beautiful flowers beside the track? 
Well, they came from seeds which I scattered 
along this same road many years ago." 

"Hopefulness, laughter, and cheer!" some 
one writes. "Scatter them wherever you go 
like roses on your path. Give them in place 
of grudges and throw them out instead of 
hints. Exchange them for insinuations and 
substitute them for complaints. Take them 
to your shopmates in the morning and bring 
them back to your loved ones at noon. Be- 
stow them in the office and send them in the 
mail. Carry them to the sick and leave them 
with the unconsoled. Everywhere and al- 
ways, with your Christian geniality, warm up 
the cold streets and hearthstones of the 
world." 

Cheerfulness amid dark and gloomy sur- 
roundings is like the glow of sunlight irradiat- 
ing the murkiness of the day. The influence 



236 The Joys of Living 

of a cheerful spirit cannot be estimated. It 
takes only a drop of oil to stop a screeching 
axle or hinge. So a little bit of sunshine scat- 
ters the shadows. Sunlight has an inspiriting 
effect, a beneficent influence; it is favorable 
to health; it makes all nature rejoice, and it 
warms the soul of man. So a cheerful face 
lightens other hearts, gives strength to other 
lives, and imparts courage to face difficulties 
that may frown before one. Some one has 
said, "A happy human face — it is the gift that 
may be made by poor or rich, by old or young. 
It is the gift to which all are entitled, with 
which all are pleased. It is written in a lan- 
guage all can read, and carries a message none 
can refuse." 

"I jist loike to let her in at the dure," said 
an Irish servant of a lady caller. "The very 
face of her does one good, shure." 

How glad we all are to welcome sunny 
souls! We are never too busy to see them. 
There is nothing we welcome so much as sun- 
shine. 

"The cheerful heart makes its own blue 
sky." 



A Cheerful Mind 237 

We all know how the very landscape seems 
to laugh with us when we rejoice, seems to 
exult with us when we are glad, and the very 
sun and the flowers seem to reflect our joy. 
But when we are melancholy and blue all 
nature takes on the same expression, and while, 
of course, there is no real change in nature, yet 
to us this apparent change is tremendous. 

When we lose the power to smile, what hide- 
ous images arise in the mind! How soon the 
imagination becomes morbid! The mind be- 
comes infested with doubts and fears, and 
hallucinations when its activity ceases. When 
the purpose is gone, disorder comes in; when 
joy goes out, melancholia enters. 

If there is anything we need in this too 
serious civilization of ours, it is men and 
women who smile always. It costs no more 
to wear a smile than to go about with a thun- 
der-cloud expression, — and what a difl*erence 
it will make to you and everybody who sees 
you! Everybody we meet is helped or hin- 
dered by what we radiate. It makes all the 
diff*erence in the world whether we go about 
with a smiling face or wearing a frown. A 



238 The Joys of Living 

smile in the heart not only changes the expres- 
sion but it changes the whole nature which, as 
we know, takes on the color of our moods. 

The time has gone by when long-faced, too 
sober, too serious people shall dominate the 
world. Melancholy solemnity used to be re- 
garded as a sign of spirituality, but it is now 
looked upon as the imprint of a morbid mind. 
There is no religion in it. True religion is full 
of hope, sunshine, optimism, and cheerfulness. 
It is joyous and glad and beautiful. There 
is no Christianity in the ugly, the discordant, 
the sad. The religion which Christ taught 
was bright, cheerful, and beautiful. The sun- 
shine, the "hlies of the field," the "birds of the 
air," the hills, the valleys, the trees, the moun- 
tains, the brooks — all things beautiful — ^were 
in His teaching. There was no cold, dry 
theology in it. It was just happy Chris- 
tianity ! 

Refuse to be gloomy. Cheer up! Get 
your mind off your troubles. Do not think 
about them. Think of the bright things in 
life. Think gratefully of the good things you 
have, and be cheerful. 



A Cheerful Mind 239 

Emerson says, ''Do not hang a dismal pic- 
ture on your wall, and do not deal with sables 
and glooms in your conversation." 

If you carry about a gloomy face, you ad- 
vertise the fact that hope has died out of you; 
that life has been a disappointment to you. 
Adopt the sun-dial's motto: "I record none 
but hours of sunshine." 

What else in life is more valuable than the 
art of forgetting, of burying, covering up the 
disagreeable, everything that has caused us 
pain and hindered our progress? 

The person who has this art is largely inde- 
pendent of his immediate surroundings. He 
can be happy without money. He can be 
happy in good times or in hard times. He can 
rejoice when others are mourning, have a good 
time when others are in the "blues." 

Man was not made to express discord, but 
harmony; to express beauty, truth, love, and 
happiness; wholeness, not halfness; complete- 
ness, not incompleteness. 

The mental temple was not given us for the 
storing of things that distress us. It was in- 
tended for the abode of the gods, for the treas- 



240 The Joys of Living 

uring of high purposes, grand aims, noble 
aspirations. 

It does not take very long to learn that the 
good excludes the bad; that the higher always 
shuts out the lower; that the greater motive, 
the grander affection, excludes the lesser, the 
lower. The good is more than a match for the 
bad. 

"Above all else, I love a courageous gayety 
— one that can accomplish great deeds with 
smiles and song; that gayety of the soldier 
who makes the best of everything, seasons his 
thin porridge with a joke, laughs over his 
primitive bed, the inclemency of the seasons, 
and hums the tunes of his native country while 
firing his gun." 

What a marvelous gift to have that mental 
alchemy which makes even poverty seem at- 
tractive, which sees the ludicrous side of mis- 
fortune ! 

I once traveled with a young man who had 
a marvelous alchemy in his nature which 
turned the most disagreeable experiences into 
gold. He could find enjoyment in the most 
ordinary and even the most embarrassing situ- 



A Cheerful Mind 241 

ations. He had a genius for seeing the funny 
side of things, and kept everybody around him 
laughing. Once when we were so troubled 
with fleas in a hotel in Vienna that we could 
not sleep, I saw my friend on the floor having 
a lot of fun, measuring a large specimen. He 
said that he had found the biggest flea on rec- 
ord. 

There is everything in acquiring the art of 
looking on the sunny side of men and things. 

The world is a looking-glass which flings 
back to us the reflection of ourselves. If we 
laugh it laughs back at us. If we shed tears, 
it reflects a sorrowful face. 

Do you go through life wretched, miserable, 
or do you rise above the petty annoyances 
which destroy the peace of so many people? 
Learn the fine art of enjoying everybody and 
everything. Like the bee, get honey from 
everywhere. Form the habit of getting good 
out of every experience in life. You can get 
something which will enrich your life, some- 
thing helpful, out of everybody you meet. 
Every experience has something which would 
help somebody. Why not you? 



242 The Joys of Living 

A business woman thus tells of an interest- 
ing experiment she made: 

"I started out to my work one morning, 
determined to try the power of cheerful think- 
ing (I had been moody, sullen, and discour- 
aged long enough). I said to myself: *I 
have often observed that a happy state of mind 
has a wonderful effect upon my physical 
make-up, so I will try its effect upon others, 
and see if my right thinking can be brought to 
act upon them.' You see I was curious. As I 
walked along, more and more resolved on my 
purpose, and persisting that I was happy, that 
the world was treating me well, I was sur- 
prised to find myself lifted up, as it were ; my 
carriage became more erect, my step lighter, 
and I had the sensation of treading on air. 
Unconsciously, I was smiling, for I caught 
myself in the act once or twice. I looked into 
the faces of the women I passed and there saw 
so much trouble and anxiety, discontent, even 
to peevishness, that my heart went out to them, 
and I wished I could impart to them a wee bit 
of the sunshine I felt pervading me. 

"Arriving at the office, I greeted the book- 



A Cheerful Mind 243 

keeper with some passing remark, that for the 
life of me I could not have made under dif- 
ferent conditions ; I am not naturally witty ; it 
immediately put us on a pleasant footing for 
the day; she had caught the reflection. The 
president of the company, by whom I was em- 
ployed, was a very busy man and much wor- 
ried over his aifairs, and at some remark that 
he made about my work I would ordinarily 
have felt quite hurt (being too sensitive by 
nature and education) ; but this day I had 
determined nothing should mar its brightness, 
so rephed to him cheerfully. His brow 
cleared, and there was another pleasant foot- 
ing established, and so throughout the day I 
went, allowing no cloud to spoil its beauty for 
me or others about me. At the kind home 
where I was staying the same course was pur- 
sued, and, where before I had felt estrange- 
ment and want of sympathy, I found con- 
geniahty and warm friendship. People will 
meet you halfway if you will take the trouble 
to go that far. 

"So, my sisters, if you think the world is 
not treating you kindly, don't delay a day, but 



244 The Joys op Living 

say to yourselves : 'I am going to keep young 
in spite of the gray hairs; even if things do 
not always come my way I am going to live 
for others, and shed sunshine across the path- 
way of all I meet.' You will find happiness 
springing up like flowers around you, will 
never want for friends or companionship, and 
above all the peace of God will rest upon your 
soul." 

Some people have a faculty for touching the 
wrong keys; from the finest instrument they 
extract only discord. They sound the note of 
pessimism everywhere. All their songs are in 
a minor key. Everything is looking down. 
The shadows predominate in all their pictures. 
There is nothing bright, cheerful, or beautiful 
about them. Their outlook is always gloomy; 
times are always hard and money tight. 
Everything in them seems to be contracting; 
nothing expanding or growing or widening in 
their lives. 

With others it is just the reverse. They 
cast no shadows. They radiate sunshine. 
Every bud they touch opens its petals and 
flings out its fragrance and beauty. They 



A Cheerful Mind 245 

never approach you but to cheer; they never 
speak to you but to inspire. They scatter 
flowers wherever they go. They have that 
happy alchemy which turns prose to poetry, 
ughness to beauty, discord to melody. They 
see the best in people and say pleasant and 
helpful things about them. 

There is no habit which will give more satis- 
faction, that will enrich you more than this of 
doing a good turn for others at every oppor- 
tunity. If you cannot give material help, if 
you have no money to give, you can always 
help by a cheerful spirit, by cordial words 
of sympathy, kindness, and encouragement. 
There are more hearts hungering for love and 
sympathy and cheer than for money, and these 
you can always give. 



XVII 

THE TWIN ENEMIES OF HAPPINESS FEAR 

AND WORRY 

"I wrote down my troubles every day, 
And after a few short years. 
When I turned to the heartaches passed away, 
I read them with smiles, not tears." 

"Worry is the most popular form of suicide." 

"The gods we worship write their names in our faces." 

Once upon a time a magician felt such pity 
for a mouse in his house which lived in perpet- 
ual fear of the cat, that he changed it into a 
cat. But it at once began to be afraid of the 
dog, and the magician changed it into a dog. 
It still suffered constant terror of a tiger on 
the premises, and the magician turned it into 
a tiger. Nor did its troubles end there, for 
it was in constant fear of a huntsman. Fi- 
nally the disgusted magician turned it back to 
a mouse again, saying, "As you have only the 
nerve of a mouse, it is impossible to help you 
by giving you the body of a nobler animal." 

Many people never seem to be able to rid 



Fear and Worry 247 

their minds of fear. When they are poor they 
imagine that if they only had money and health 
they would never feel dread or worry again. 
They imagine that if they had this or that, if 
they were differently environed or condi- 
tioned, they could get rid of anxiety and its 
whole vampire family, but when they gain 
these prizes, the same old enemy, although in 
a different form, still pursues them. 

There are no more enemies of happiness 
than fear and worry. 

They are always and everywhere a curse. 
There is nothing which we are called upon to 
meet in life, there is no misfortune or disaster 
that can ever come to us which we cannot bear 
better without these joy killers. 

Fear is an old, old enemy, indeed, and 
worry its hated accomplice. Primitive fear we 
have always had with us, but worry is the dis- 
ease of our own age. In our "enlightenment" 
we both pity and ridicule the barbarous man 
who hved in mortal fear of his cruel gods. 
But have we not also our exacting demons be- 
fore which our souls cringe and our powers 
wither and fail? 



248 The Joys of Living 

I know a most estimable man who has been 
terribly handicapped all his life by fear. It 
has played great havoc with his career. He 
has fought desperately against it, but he did 
not know until recently that it was possible to 
neutralize it by its opposite mental suggestion. 
He says that fear has dogged his steps from 
infancy, has strangled his self-expression, has 
stood in the way of everything he has ever at- 
tempted. It has kept him from undertaking 
things which he was perfectly; confident he 
could carry out. 

Since he has found out how to neutralize 
this great destroyer of his peace, his happiness, 
and his success, his whole mental attitude has 
completely changed. He says he never dis- 
covered himself, or dreamed of his possibilities, 
until he annihilated fear. The very elimina- 
tion of this enemy has resulted in a tremendous 
uphft and improvement, so that where he was 
once weak, timid, vacillating, fearing to un- 
dertake things, he is now strong, vigorous, con- 
fident. The destruction of fear has unlocked 
his latent energy and resulted in a tremendous 
increase of mental power. He can accom- 



Fear and Worry 249 

plish more now in a month, and easily, than he 
could have accomplished formerly in a year, 
and that with very painful effort. 

Fear kills hope; worry and anxiety crush 
confidence, ruin the power to concentrate, and 
paralyze the initiative. Fear is the fatal foe 
of all achievement. It is the poisoner of hap- 
piness. 

"Take an antitoxin against fret and worry 
the moment you feel the approach of their con- 
tagious atmosphere," says a writer. 

Many people are always afraid of some- 
thing. They do not have courage enough 
really to enjoy life. They are afraid to min- 
gle with those who are mentally their superiors 
or who have been more favored by fortune. 
Fearful that their poverty of mind or purse 
may be disclosed, they thus forfeit many ad- 
vantages and pleasures to be derived from 
social discourse. They are cowards, and cow- 
ards are never happy. 

We were made to dominate our environ- 
ment. It was not intended that we should be 
buffeted about by accident or chance. Our 
greatest enemies live in our own brains, in our 



250 The Joys of Living 

imaginations, in our wrong ideas of life. We 
were intended to be conquerors instead of 
slaves and there is no slavery like the slavery 
to a conviction or a superstition that makes us 
cowards. 

Foolish superstitions and ignorance mar the 
happiness of a multitude of people. Many 
think that superstitions are harmless, but noth- 
ing is harmless which makes a man believe that 
he is a puppet of circumstances, that he is at 
the mercy of signs and symbols, that there is 
a power in the world in opposition to the 
Omnipotent; something that is working 
against and trying to harm mortal beings. 

It is estimated that there are more than five 
thousand different forms of fear. With a 
multitude of people a dread of some impending 
evil is ever present. It haunts them even in 
their happiest moments. Their joy is poi- 
soned with it so that they never take real pleas- 
ure or comfort in anything. The skeleton in 
the closet is the ghost that is ever at the ban- 
quet. 

The fear of disease mars the happiness of a 
vast multitude of people. They picture the 



Fear and Worry 251 

horrible symptoms of some dread malady they 
are sure is developing in their system, and the 
constant fear impairs nutrition, weakens the 
resisting power of the body and tends to en- 
courage or develop any possible hereditary 
taint or disease tendency which may be lurk- 
ing in the system. 

Fear modifies all the currents of the blood, 
poisons and dilutes all the secretions. It 
strangles the circulation, paralyzes the nervous 
system, whitens the hair, wrinkles the face, 
enfeebles the step. 

What depresses and distresses, disturbs or 
worries us; in fact, all phases of fear and anx- 
iety, contract the blood vessels and impede the 
free circulation of the blood. 

On the other hand whatever makes us 
happy, whatever excites an enjoyable emotion, 
relaxes the capillaries and gives freedom to 
the circulation. 

Children who live in a fear atmosphere suf- 
fer from arrested development, they never un- 
fold naturally; their starv^ed, stunted bodies 
never become normal; their blood vessels are 
smaller, their circulation slower, heart weaker, 



252 The Joys of Living 

under the influence of these terror-producing 
demons. Fear dries up the very source of 
life, while love that casteth out fear has just 
the opposite eifect. 

It is a strange thing that after all the cen- 
turies of experience and enlightenment, the 
human race has not learned that fear is noth- 
ing but a ghost of the imagination, and has not 
resolved positively to refuse to be tortured 
by these enemies of happiness. It seems as 
though the race could have found some way 
out of this needless suffering centuries ago, 
but we are still frightened by the same ghosts 
of fear and worry that haunted our ancestors. 
They could be easily destroyed or neutralized 
by simply reversing the thought, the mental 
attitude. 

Look back upon your life, you who are 
nearly at the end, and you will find that the 
fear of things that made you prematurely old, 
which wrinkled your face and took the elastic- 
ity out of your step, the bloom from your 
cheek, and robbed you of your joy, was of 
things which never really happened. 

It is strange that that which has no basis in 



Fear and Worry 253 

reality should have tortured the whole human 
race from the very dawn of history to the pres- 
ent, as has fear, which has absolutely no real- 
ity, but is purely a mental product, a bogy 
of the imagination. We know that the Cre- 
ator never put into His image anything which 
would cause such distress and destroy peace 
of mind and happiness, which would ruin 
man's efficiency. A physician has recently 
said that fear was as normal to the human, mind 
as courage, ff^ou might as well say that dis- 
cord is harmony as to say that fear is normal. 

Theology and our creeds have too much 
anxiety and fear, too much shadow, and too 
little joys and gladness, too much cloud and 
too little of the sunshine, too much of the here- 
after and too little of the now and here. It is 
"the Christ and not the creed" that humanity 
wants. 

For many centuries the Church taught such 
a wrong and totally false idea of death that it 
helped to develop a race horror of it. Death 
is as natural as birth. It is merely passing 
through another door on the life path, only 
entering another state of consciousness. The 



254 The Joys of Living 

death change is as natural as the change of the 
caterpillar to the chrysalis, the grub to the but- 
terfy. It is merely one more stage of un- 
foldment. 

"Death is but a covered bridge 
That leads from light to light." 

Many people have developed such a fear of 
death, they are so terrified at the very thought 
of it, that they do not half enjoy the present 
life or get the most out of it. 

Some people always seem to be preparing 
for death. This mental attitude — that, not 
knowing what may happen, we should be pre- 
pared for the end when it comes — this living 
in the shadow of death, is demoralizing. It 
is a skeleton that rises up to trouble many at 
their feasts. They cannot really enjoy them- 
selves because of the perpetual death fear. 

I know several men who, since they passed 
middle life, have been constantly preparing 
for the end, getting their affairs in order, mak- 
ing their wills, deciding how their business is 
to be managed after they are gone. And they 
are constantly referring to death, talking 



Fear and Worry 255 

about it, holding the death picture in the minds 
of their famihes hke a perpetual moving-pic- 
ture show. 

Think of what a wrong thing it is for chil- 
dren to be brought up in such a death-picture 
atmosphere that they are afraid to go to bed at 
night! I believe that the picture suggested 
to the child's mind in the prayer, *'If I should 
die before I wake," has done infinite harm. 
What does the child know about death? He 
cannot comprehend what to him seems the 
horror, the awfulness of it. 

I believe the death picture instilled into the 
young mind during its plastic years (when its 
imagination is so active) by the parents and 
the Church has been responsible for a vast 
amount of suffering and has tended to prej- 
udice a vast multitude of people against their 
Creator. There is something so absolutely 
incompatible between the '"father-mother" 
idea of the love of God, which we try to instill 
into our children, and the horrible idea of 
death, which the child is taught to believe is 
caused by the same loving God. The two 
things do not go together, and the child cannot 



256 The Joys of Living 

possibly have that sweet, tender love for the 
Being who is responsible for such a revolting 
death that he should have for an all-loving 
Father. 

For centuries multitudes of church people 
lived under sentence of death with an uncertain 
reprieve. They never seemed to know what 
moment they would be called. They lived in 
a constant fear of dying. This constant death 
horror hung over their lives like a great black 
pall, shutting off joy. 

The great soul, calm in the nobler happiness, 
feels a sense of safety, of absolute security un- 
der all circumstances. When one believes 
that he is the victim of a destiny which he can- 
not control, that he is liable at any moment 
to have his life plans upset, his program 
spoiled, all his hopes frustrated without warn- 
ing, — in other words, that there is no certainty 
for the future of his endeavor, however great, 
he cannot develop that solidity of character, 
that enduring, underlying principle, which is 
the backbone of every great life. 

There must be a conviction that there is a 
divine something within us, which sustains un- 



Fear and Worry 257 

der all circumstances; that a wise Creator has 
placed us beyond the reach of accident upon 
land or sea, before we can develop an enduring 
character. There must be a feeling of abso- 
lute security, before we can attain that sym- 
metry or arrive at that perfect balance or poise 
of character which constitutes real manhood 
and womanhood. 

As long as there is any doubt in our minds 
whether we are part of the eternal principle, 
of the great Infinite plan, which cannot be an- 
nihilated, but is beyond the reach of want, 
chance, or misfortune, the character will be 
defective. It will lack that enduring strength 
which is characteristic of all great lives. 

All noble characters have had this unshake- 
able faith in the truth of being, in the one en- 
during principle, in the reality of love, and the 
supreme purpose of life. This beautiful con- 
fidence in God, who is life not death, was 
expressed by Whittier in the lines : 



And so beside the Silent Sea 

I wait with muffled oar; 

No harm from Him can come to me 

On ocean or on shore. 



258 The Joys of Living 

Fear is the consciousness of separateness 
from the great, Infinite principle of love, of 
truth, and of Omnipotent power. Could 
anything be more assuring, anything show us 
better our unity with the Divine, than this 
comforting statement, "Lo! I am with you al- 
ways"? It seems as though the Psalmist and 
many of the other Bible writers took special 
pains to give specific remedies for all human 
ills. 

All fear is based upon the fact that the suf- 
ferer feels weak from the consciousness of his 
separateness from the Infinite strength, the 
Infinite supply, and when he comes into con- 
sciousness of at-one-ment with the Power 
which made and sustains him, when he finds 
the peace which satisfies and passeth all un- 
derstanding — then will he feel a sense of the 
glory of being; and, having once touched this 
Power and tasted the Infinite blessedness, he 
will never fear or worry again, never again be 
satisfied with the fleshpots of Egj^pt. 

Our sense of fear is always in proportion to 
our sense of weakness or inability to protect 
ourselves from the cause of it. 



FteAE AND Worry 259 

The late Professor Shaler, of Harvard 
University, said that the greatest discovery 
of the last century was that of the unity of 
everything in the universe, the oneness of all 
life. 

Life will take on a new meaning when we 
come into the realization of our at-one-ment 
with this great, creating, sustaining Principle 
of the universe. 

The idea that there is but one principle run- 
ning through the universe, one life, one truth, 
one reality, that this power is divinely benefi- 
cent, and that we are really in a great current 
running Godward, heavenward, is one of the 
most inspiring, encouraging, and fear-killing 
beliefs that has ever entered the human mind. 

The realization that in the truth of our be- 
ing we are actually a part of this great, divine 
Principle, a necessary, inseparable part of it, 
and that we can no more be annihilated than 
can the laws of mathematics, that we must 
partake of all of the qualities which compose 
our Creator, that we must be perfect and im- 
mortal because we were created by Perfection, 
are a part of immortal Principle, solves the 



260 The Joys of Living 

greatest mysteries of life and gives us a won- 
derful sense of safety and contentment, which 
nothing else can give. 

Just in proportion as we realize this oneness 
with the Divine, this at-one-ment with our 
Maker, do our lives become calm, confident, 
creative. 

Our fear, our worry, our anxiety are indi- 
cations that we have lost consciousness of our 
divine connection and have strayed from home, 
that we are out of tune with the Infinite, in dis- 
cord with divine Principle. 

When one feels that his hand is gripped by 
the Omnipotent hand, he is "too near to God 
for doubt or fear," and he knows that no harm 
can come to him from any finite source, and 
all sense of fear vanishes. To feel that we 
are held always, everywhere by this Divine 
hand and protected by Omnipotent wisdom 
steadies the life wonderfully and gives a poise, 
an assurance and confidence that nothing else 
can. The consciousness that we are actually 
to live, move, and have our being in the 
Divinity will revolutionize our lives. When 
the mind is in us which was also in Christ, we 



Fear and Worry 261 

shall never know fear again. As Whittier 
has beautifully said: 

I know not where His Islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air, 
I only know I cannot drift 
Beyond His love and care. 

Every one should be able to dominate his 
own mentality, to be the master of his own 
mind at all times. It is pitiable to see a strong 
man in most things, a passive victim to the 
torturing thoughts which he should be able to 
strangle in an instant. 

The minds of many men are so affected by 
chronic anxiety and fear, that something is 
going to happen to them; their minds are so 
troubled with foreboding thoughts, that their 
judgment is not reliable. When fear steps 
in, good sense, good judgment, steps out. 

A man should be able to be master of his 
own mental realm. He should be able to de- 
tect the character of the guest thoughts which 
gain access to his mind. He should be able 
to open or close the gates of his mind, to in- 
clude or exclude, as he chooses. But, when 
we look back over life and see what havoc fear 



262 The Joys of Living 

and worry have made upon our digestion, our 
bodily functions, and our nerves, and how they 
have been destructive in the relations of our 
everyday life, we are appalled at their power. 

Thousands die annually from depressed 
spirits, disappointed hopes, thwarted ambi- 
tions, and premature exhaustion. We have 
not yet learned to cultivate that high-minded 
cheerfulness which is found in great souls, self- 
centered and confident in their own heaven- 
aided powers — that lofty cheerfulness which 
is the great preventive of humanity's ills. We 
have not yet learned, as a people, that grief, 
anxiety, and fear, are the great enemies of 
human life, and should be resisted as we resist 
the plague. Without cheerfulness there can 
be no healthy action, physical, mental, or 
moral, for it is the normal atmosphere of our 
being. 

The great thing is to keep one's physical, 
mental, and moral standards high, so that the 
worry, anxiety, fear germs cannot get a foot- 
ing in our system. Our resisting power ought 
to be so great that it would be impossible for 
those enemies to get into the mind or body. 



Fear and Woury 263 

The other day I came across this sentence 
which struck me quite forcefully: *'If you 
cannot be happy when you are miserable, you 
cannot be happy at all." 

The writer no doubt meant that the man 
who is a victim of his moods, who cannot com- 
mand his mental outlook, who is not master 
of himself, but who goes up and down with 
the mood that happens to be upon him at the 
moment, cannot control his happiness. He 
cannot tell you whether he is going to be happy 
or not, because he does not know how he will 
feel at any particular time. 

Doctors could testify graphically to one of 
the worst results of chronic indulgences in fear 
and anxiety, and that is the growing use of 
narcotics. Modern worry is largely respon- 
sible for the alarming increase of the drug 
habit. It is a most unfortunate thing that so 
many patent medicines, which ignorant people 
think are specifics for all sorts of troubles, can 
be so easily procured at drug stores. All the 
preparations that contain morphine, cocaine, 
and alcohol, especially the headache specifics, 
are very dangerous in the hands of uninformed 



The Joys of Living 



people, and often lead to tragic results. It 
is so easy for any one to get deadly drugs that 
it is a great temptation for victims of the 
worry habit to seek relief in them. 

The self -drugging habit is one of the most 
dangerous symptoms of modern times. Medi- 
cines are put up in such attractive packages, 
so convenient to take and to carry in one's 
pocket, that the dangers of self -drugging are 
greatly increased. The use of these "nerve 
soothers" and "panaceas" reflects seriously 
upon the way we are living and working to- 
day. The tendency to the drug habit is fairly 
inherent in the abnormal tension under which 
we battle for a livelihood and for happiness. 
Our nerves are continuously strained to the 
breaking point; we can't "let down"; we lose 
the ability to surrender ourselves to normal 
influences for enjoyment. We must keep our 
capacity for enjoyment; we must find hap- 
piness at whatever cost. So, many people get 
into the way of depending on stimulants or 
narcotics to make happiness physically possible. 
They resort to drugs to escape their miseries 
and to realize whatever pleasurable sensations 



Fear and Worry 265 

their jaded minds and senses may be able to 
get from life. 

When Frances Willard was first studying 
intemperance among the laboring classes in 
this country, she said: "They are poor be- 
cause they drink." But before long she in- 
verted her inference and said: "They drink 
because they are poor." 

Take the case of the common workman and 
victim of the gigantic steel industry in Pitts- 
burg. He must toil, a slave subdued to a 
system like a devouring Minotaur, all his day- 
times and even late into the night, with only 
a few hours, at long intervals, that he can call 
his own. Can we blame him when he snatches 
at that brief respite to swing the full length of 
the pendulum over into the world of vivid sen- 
sations that the grinding monotony of all his 
other days denies him, — or into the realm of 
Nirvana for shattered nerves and a body wound 
up like a machine that can never again find 
rest? He must get this reaction, or he will 
kill himself, or go insane. Such is nature's 
law. And how is a man who knows nothing 
except slavery of mind and body so to dispose 



266 The Joys of Living 

himself, mentally and spiritually, in those 
brief hours of freedom, as to receive the real 
happiness of life? He thinks he has only one 
means of getting the indispensable reaction. 
Only one sort of happiness is open to him. 
He thinks he must go and get as drunk as he 
can, and for a little while monotony and pain 
will be dispelled, and dreams and grateful ob- 
livion will possess him. 

This is an extreme example. But it serves 
the more graphically to show an abnormal 
tendency of our times to which all of us, in 
measure, as life to-day makes drudges and 
machines of us, are prone. We fear to lose 
our sensibiUty for enjoyment of life. We 
worry lest pain and trouble deprive us of 
happiness. And if our souls cannot or will 
not replace fear and worry with true happiness 
in daily livng, then we resort to external 
means, such as drugs and stimulants, to give 
us the pathological counterfeit of happiness. 

Formerly there were very few things which 
people would resort to to acquire a feeling of 
well being and try to force their jaded nerves 
and vitiated brains and faculties to give up by 



Feae and Worry 267 

artificial means, — something which they could 
not generate by natural ones. 

Nowadays we see men constantly running 
to the barrooms for a "bracer." At the clubs 
they are always wanting a cocktail, and they 
cannot get along without a cigar or cigarette 
in their mouth much of the time. 

Business men are constantly goading their 
nervous system and brain to give out some- 
thing that isn't there. They keep forcing 
themselves by these artificial means until 
they use up all their reserves, so that they 
have no resisting power when disease or ill- 
ness comes. 

Worry and fear have made more drunkards 
than almost any other cause. Anything that 
will vanish care, relieve the strain of worry 
and anxiety, anything that will bring peace 
of mind is what a disturbed, distressed, and 
anxious humanity is seeking. 

The millions of men who are constantly run- 
ning into saloons for a "bracer" do so believ- 
ing that they will get at least a temporary 
uplift or rehef from the things that trouble 
them, and that they will then be in a better 



268 The Joys of Living 

position to do their work. Few of them 
realize to what this constant stimulation from 
liquors, tobacco, coffee, drugs, will lead; 
they do not realize that they must pay for 
these prods, these stimulants, by a fatal re- 
action. Men do not realize that all a drink 
of whiskey does is to paralyze for the time 
being the nerves of the walls of the blood ves- 
sels in the brain, thus letting in an additional 
supply of blood, causing temporary conges- 
tion and additional brain stimulus, due to the 
surplus of brain nutriment floating in the 
blood, and that this condition must always be 
followed by a corresponding reaction and 
mental depression. 

All this but emphasizes more strongly our 
innate need of happiness, and the fatal in- 
fluence of fear and worry. Why is it that 
most of us, who are fortunate enough in the 
place we have found in the world, are not more 
capable of happiness? 

The trouble is that we do not look within for 
the mainspring of power. It is a strange thing 
that man should look outside of himself for 
the very help that is inside him. The moment 



Fear and Worry 269 

a man depends upon outside help, he cuts him- 
self off from the source of power; he severs 
the divine cable. He drops the trolley pole 
so that he no longer draws his power from the 
divine current. He tries, without looking to 
his higher nature, to propel his car; it has all 
of the divine machinery, all the mechanism for 
drawing off divine energy, but only if he will 
connect his trolley pole of faith and truth with 
the divine current. 

It is a reflection upon Him who made us, 
to be always worrying, fretting, and anxious; 
for, if we were in touch with Infinite power, 
we should be serene and balanced. It is as 
much our duty to repel every enemy of health 
and happiness as to keep thieves out of our 
homes. Worry and anxiety have no more 
right to darken our lives than wild beasts have 
to live in our homes. They are just as much 
out of place. 

Harmony is as normal to the man God made 
as it is to music. 

"Be sure not to worry." "Keep cheerful 
and don't worry." These common injunctions 
of a doctor when he leaves a patient, show the 



270 The Joys of Living 

universal belief of physicians in the fatal, 
blighting, health-destroying influence of worry. 
Physicians look upon it as a curse. 

Worry poisons the blood, impairs the nu- 
trition; and poisoned blood poisons the 
thought, and deteriorates all of the mental 
processes. "A day of worry is more exhaust- 
ing than a week of work. Worry upsets our 
whole system, work keeps it in health and 
order." 

Many honest, well-intentioned, hard-work- 
ing people suffer a great deal from night 
worry. It is wicked for God's children who 
are doing their best to do their share in the 
world and make it a better place to live in, to 
be unhappy. Right living entitles every one 
to happiness. 

"I have made it a rule of my life," said a 
prominent English clergyman, "never to think 
of anything disagreeable after nine o'clock at 
night." 

"Every moment of worry weakens the soul 
for its daily combat," writes a well-known 
preacher. "Worry is an infirmity; there is no 
virtue in it. Worry is spiritual nearsighted- 



Fear and Worry 271 

ness; a fumbling way of looking at little 
things, and of magnifying their value." 

"Worry is a species of insanity. We would 
count a man insane who took a dose of poison 
every day to promote his health. He is no less 
mentally unbalanced who desires happiness 
and yet indulges a habit of worrying. It is 
like walking south to find the North; it is like 
going into a cellar to look for rainbows. It 
paralyzes the powers by which the evil thing 
may be averted." 

What would you think of a man on the 
verge of bankruptcy, who was trying in every 
way possible to get together money enough to 
relieve himself from his embarrassment or to 
save his business or property, who would draw 
from the bank several times a day a few dollars 
and throw them away or spend them foolishly ? 

Do you realize, you worrier, that you are 
doing something infinitely more foohsh? 
Your brain power, your creative ability, your 
energy, are your capital, with which you are 
to solve your life problem, and yet, every sleep- 
less night you spend worrying over your 
affairs, every moment of anxiety, of fretting 



272 The Joys of Living 

and stewing, and nervous tension, is draining 
off your precious capital. Your brain capi- 
tal, nerve capital, vitality capital, which should 
help you to clear up your perplexing prob- 
lems, you are not only squandering, but you 
are also making yourself and those around you 
unhappy, destroying the harmony of your 
home, committing suicide upon months, and, 
perhaps, years of your life. All the time you 
are depending upon things outside of yourself 
to give you peace of mind, comfort, happiness, 
success. But these things are subject to ac- 
cident, and you are risking all that life ought 
to mean to you in pinning your faith to things 
which are outside your control. 

Now, there ought to be something in a life 
which is beyond the reach of accident, beyond 
the possibility of being wrecked by chance. 
Think of a man capable of leading hundreds 
or thousands of employees in a great enter- 
prise — a man of achievement, born to do great 
things — lying around for days, as I have 
known a business man to do, the victim of the 
"blues," in the clutch of mental demons which 
he ought to be able to throttle in five minutes ! 



Fear and Worry 273 

Man certainly has an inherent right to suc- 
cess and happiness that is inalienable. God's 
children are not the victims of chance, are not 
the playthings of a cold, cruel destiny beyond 
their control. Courage and cheerfulness are 
within our own will power, they are our safety, 
and self-preservation. 

There is no worse tyrant than the demon 
worry, but he is a master of our own choosing. 
He cannot force his rule upon us against our 
will. 

There are certain events, indeed, which come 
upon us unawares, certain psychic states which 
we cannot foresee nor escape. But, once we 
are conscious of those moods, we may become 
master of them. We may turn the darkest 
experience to the account of happiness. There 
is no joy equal to that of conquering bitterness, 
of overcoming sorrow. In such a victory we 
find a happiness beyond all our dreams of 
happiness. 

We are challenged to-day to overcome 
worry, but this takes us back to the ancient 
fight with fear. Fear must go. Yet, through 
long conflict we have not been able to crush his 



274 The Joys of Living 

citadel or drive him from his powerful seat. 
He continues to hold sway, the arch-enemy of 
the race, the great robber baron who plunders 
our hard-hoarded store of human happiness 
and efficiency; who makes of men cowards, 
obsessed with worry, anxiety, jealousy, and 
the sense of failure. 

It is high time we realized that he is not to 
be forced off his throne by crude attack. In- 
stead, we must, unknown to him, invite in an- 
other stronger than he. As Fear works havoc 
with the imagination, so must this newcomer 
absorb our thoughts and feehngs in a yet 
stronger way, until at length he draws to him- 
self the allegiance we have so long given Fear. 
He shall be Fear's antidote — and his name is 
Faith. 

When we have given our allegiance to Faith, 
then shall we see Fear toppling from his an- 
cient throne. We cannot drag him off by 
force but we can push him aside little by little 
to make room for a greater master of the 
human spirit than he. And when Fear shall 
be no more, worry, too, shall leave us, — both 
the old enemy and the new disease, the twin 



Fear and Worry 275 

enemies of happiness. Man shall find a sub- 
lime, new self- faith ; he shall rest in such sense 
of security, freedom, ability, as he cannot now 
conceive ; and his efficiency shall partake of the 
divine creative power. 



XVIII 

THE STRAIN TO KEEP UP APPEARANCES KILLS 
HAPPINESS 

"You can buy a lot of home happiness with a mighty small 
salary, but fashionable happiness always costs just a little 
more than you're making. You can't keep down expenses 
when you've got to keep up appearances — that is, the appear- 
ance of being something that you ain't." 

Not long ago the home of a New York 
widow, and all her other property that the 
law did not exempt, were sold at auction. It 
was found that this over-ambitious mother, in 
her efforts to marry her daughters into fami- 
lies much above their station, had made des- 
perate efforts to keep up appearances, and 
had run into debts which had finally cost her 
her home. It was found that she owed large 
amounts to the florists, the caterers, the milli- 
ners, and the dry goods people, and that she 
had been living for a long time far beyond her 
income, keeping up appearances which were 
perpetual lies. All this she did because of her 
insane ambition to marry her daughters to rich 

276 



Strain to Keep up Appearances 277 

men. The family could have lived in comfort 
on her modest income, but for the mother's 
false life standards. Thousands of dollars 
were squandered in buying hats, dresses, ex- 
pensive laces, and all sorts of finery, so that 
her daughters might shine as brilliantly as 
other young women who had many times their 
means. Now the mother is without a home 
and the daughters remain still without hus- 
bands. 

It is over-vaulting ambition, selfishness, the 
everlasting striving and struggling in the most 
unnatural way to keep up appearances, which 
causes much of the unhappiness in homes. 
Why is it that people burn out their lives with 
discontent and misery, struggling, striving, 
making slaves of themselves to keep up ap- 
pearances, in great cities, without knowing 
what real enjoyment, real life means, when 
they might be so contented and happy, might 
be somebody and stand for something in a 
smaller town, where people were not so money- 
mad, and ambition-crazy? 

I know two young married people in New 
York who are perfectly wretched because they 



278 The Joys of Living 

cannot get into fashionable society and live 
and dress like those whom they envy, and 
whose example they are not able to follow. 
They are always anxious and worried, and 
they never feel that they can afford to take 
much real comfort, except when they are 
making an impression upon others. They 
feel that they must spend everything for ap- 
pearances, because they are slaves of other 
people's opinions. 

It is not so much our lack of comforts, or 
of luxury, as our envy, our selfishness, our 
false standards that make us unhappy. 

What terrible inconvenience, hardship, and 
suffering we endure on account of other peo- 
ple's eyes and opinions! What slaves, what 
fools we make of ourselves because of what 
other people think ! How we scheme and con- 
trive to make them think we are other than 
we really are! 

It is other people's eyes that are expensive. 
It is other people's eyes that make us un- 
happy and discontented with our lot, that 
make us strain and struggle and slave, in order 
to keep up false appearances. 



Strain to Keep up Appearances 279 

The struggle to keep up with those in better 
circumstances is one of the tragedies of the 
times. Debt is one of the greatest sources of 
unhappiness, especially with young married 
people. 

In a large city like New York, many people 
feel that they are nobodies. They cannot 
keep up appearances commensurate with their 
degree of education, refinement, and culture. 
They cannot get into the society for which 
their tastes fit them, and they do not wish to 
associate with what they call the 'vulgar, un- 
cultured masses." They feel that they are 
neither one thing nor the other in such a big 
city. 

I know families in New York who live in 
perpetual misery because of this condition of 
things. I have in mind a business man who 
has a very small income, but both himself and 
wife are educated, cultured, and have refined 
tastes, and they simply will not live in any 
part of the city in keeping with their income. 
The result is that they are obliged to strain so 
much to live in the more fashionable neighbor- 
hoods that they have very little for food and 



280 The Joys of Living 

clothing and recreation after paying their 
rent. Many people seem to think that it is a 
disgrace not to have a big income; that the 
great desideratum of life is to be able to spend 
a lot of money upon luxuries. But, after all, 
what is there in it? — Often unhappiness, ill 
health from trying to get too much out of life, 
from overeating, overdrinking, and dissipa- 
tion. 

On the other hand there are plenty of people 
who take scant pleasure in life because they 
are slaves to false economy and overwork. 
Their economy is niggardly, mean, stingy, 
even in their homes. 

They are always scolding about picayune 
wastes of life, cautioning everybody not to use 
too much of this or that, and making every- 
body about them miserable. 

I know a man who harps upon using too 
much butter and too much meat to such an ex- 
tent that other members of the family fairly 
dread meal times. They dislike to put on a 
new pair of shoes or other articles of clothing 
because the head of the house will make such 
a fuss and ask if their purchase was necessary. 



Strain to Keep up Appearances 281 

One of the meanest traits of stingy hus- 
bands is their inclination to exert a censorship 
over the wife's expenditures. It takes all the 
joy and interest out of her end of the partner- 
ship. If the wife happens to make a mistake 
in getting a bad bargain, many a man will get 
into a rage and make her miserable when per- 
haps he himself makes all sorts of foohsh bar- 
gains, and takes home things which the wife 
knows are absolutely useless and that the 
money paid for them was practically thrown 
away. 

I know a man who rarely ever asks his wife 
what she wants in the home, or gives her money 
with which to buy things herself. He will buy 
furniture and bric-a-brac, all sorts of things at 
auctions and bargain sales which do not match 
an}i:hing in the home, which are entirely out 
of place, and yet the wife does not dare to 
criticise her husband. He wiU buy a com- 
plete set of some author's works because he 
gets them cheap, when, perhaps there is not a 
single volume among them which any one in 
the home would care to read, and the wife 
knows perfectly well that a few selected vol- 



282 The Joys of Living 

umes from choice authors would be worth more 
than a whole library of such rubbish as the hus- 
band has brought home. 

There is probably no one quahty which is 
more misunderstood and abused than econ- 
omy. Especially is this true in the home. 
False economy is fatal to the home joy. In 
some homes saving becomes a fetish. Multi- 
tudes of things are put away in attics and cup- 
boards and closets which can never be used, 
and which are a nuisance and ought to be 
burned up. 

I have in mind a home where the atmosphere 
of poverty and denial predominates. The 
family does without even many of the com- 
forts of life. False ideas of saving have so 
infected every member that it is positively 
painful to visit them. Only a little while ago 
I was at dinner in this house and the little boy 
of six remarked that they had mackerel that 
evening because they could get it cheaper than 
any other fish. Even the small children 
would ask the cost of things at the table when 
guests were present. 

Many men allow their wives to wear them- 



STRAI:^^ TO Keep up xIppearances 283 

selves out in their early married life, to enable 
them to save a little money and get a start in 
the world; then after they become prosperous 
they are ashamed of their wives, because 
through hard work and self-denial for false 
economy's sake they have lost all their attrac- 
tiveness. Then many of these men conclude 
that they are not congenial, and they get a 
divorce, and marry some young, attractive girl 
who can shine in society. 

"The Governor's Lady" is a recent drama 
out of real hfe. I have seen in Washington 
men who have risen in the world and have 
gotten into Congress or obtained government 
appointments, who have come up from pov- 
erty by dint of the most extreme economizing 
in the home, and who have lost infinitely less 
in the struggle than their wives. I have seen 
them at public gatherings, where they 'not 
only did not seem at all proud to introduce 
their wives, but even avoided doing so, and 
devoted themselves to more attractive, younger 
women. 

At a reception, not long ago, I met a multi- 
millionaire who had worked his way to the 



284 The Joys of Living 

front from extreme poverty, and whose wife 
had sacrificed her beauty and all her grace of 
form and her charm in the terrible struggle to 
help him on his feet and practically out of 
bankruptcy in their younger days. She had 
a sweet face, but it was sad. There was char- 
acter there, but almost a total lack of the 
charm which attracts selfish men. 

The man himself was faultlessly dressed, 
splendidly groomed. He was fresh and vig- 
orous, because his constitution was very much 
stronger than his wife's. He was so much en- 
gaged in chatting, talking, and laughing with 
the more comely ladies that he scarcely had 
time to introduce his poor wife, who sat like a 
wall-flower in the background, plainly dressed, 
and very conscious that her years of hard 
work and pinching and saving had robbed her 
of the very attractiveness which first charmed 
her husband. Only twice during the entire 
reception did I see this man introduce any one 
to his wife, and then in a very perfunctory 
manner. 

It could hardly seem possible that this very 
unattractive and apparently hard-working 



Strain to Keep up Appearances 285 

woman, in whom the joy of hfe was crushed 
out, could be the wife of this handsome, mag- 
netic man, who, by the way, never liked to 
work, and who had not proposed to wear him- 
self out, or worry himself to death, in getting 
a living. 

I happened to know the history of this man's 
wealth, and that his success was due mostly to 
his wife's shrewdness, and as much to her hard 
work and self-denial as to his ability. He let 
his wife do the worrying and the scrimping. 
Yet now that he has the money she is prac- 
tically side-tracked. He flies over the coun- 
try in his splendid automobile, is much in 
demand because he can afford to spend gener- 
ously, but his unattractive wife, except on rare 
occasions, remains at home. 

This is how he has retained his physical 
attractiveness and robustness, and why, now 
that they are in the very height of their pros- 
perity, just ready to enjoy what they possess, 
the wife is already a "gone by." A very un- 
attractive old age stares her in the face, while, 
though no older in years, he is in the flower of 
his manhood. 



286 The Joys of Living 

The young wife was too unselfish, too de- 
voted, too anxious to save and to help her hus- 
band get on in the world, to spare her strength 
or try to preserve her beauty. She was will- 
ing to give her all to help him ; but now he does 
not appreciate it. Thus selfishness and nig- 
gardly economy have slain her happiness and 
their chance of happiness together in their 
home in old age. 

In our day the home rides the waves be- 
tween Scylla and Charybdis, — in peril of 
being torn asunder in the whirlpools of ex- 
travagance or ground to pieces on the harsh 
rocks of false economy. The home cannot 
find happiness, except it steer its course away 
into calmer seas of contentment, simplicity, a 
pleasant thrift and sane enjoyment of life. 



XIX 

CONTENTMENT, THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS 

"Naught's had, all's spent, 
When our desire is got without content." 

*'Why thus longing, thus forever sighing. 
For the far-off, unattained and dim. 
While the beautiful, all round thee lying. 
Offers up its low, perpetual hymn?" 

The average American sees just about as 
much of real life, of the things worth while, as 
he sees of the beautiful scenery through which 
he passes, driving his car at a high speed. Of 
course now and then he diverts his eyes long 
enough to get a hasty glimpse of a mountain 
peak or a beautiful valley or a gorgeous sun- 
set, but the beautiful scenery, the details of the 
glorious flowers, are all lost upon him. 

All the wonderful details of little experi- 
ences, the fine courtesies, the exquisite things 
of life, the things that are worth while, are lost 
to us because we live at such a terrific pace. 
We cannot take time to see things, to appre- 
ciate them, to enjoy them. We do not take 

28T 



288 The Joys of Living 

time to enjoy our friends. Our whole mind is 
anxiously focused upon the machine and the 
road in front of us. 

We are like men who carry the mails on the 
pony express. We are borne along at a ter- 
rific speed, and we only dismount to mount 
again. And so we go tearing through life 
forever changing from a tired to a fresh pony. 

Bent forms, premature gray hair, heavy 
steps, and feverish haste are indicative of 
American life. Restlessness and discontent 
have become chronic, and are characteristic of 
our age and nation. 

This straining, struggling, and striving is 
not life; it is a fev-er, a disease, well named 
Americanitis. It bears no relation to happi- 
ness. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, when questioned 
as to the secret of his marvelous youthfulness, 
in his eightieth year, replied that it was due 
chiefly "to a cheerful disposition and invari- 
able contentment in every period of my life 
with what I was. I never felt the pangs of 
ambition. ... It is restlessness, ambition, 
discontent, and disquietude that make us grow 



Contentment, Secret of Happiness 280 

old prematurely by carving wrinkles on our 
faces. Wrinkles do not appear on faces that 
have constantly smiled. Smiling is the best 
possible massage. Contentment is the foun- 
tain of youth." 

The sort of ambition the genial doctor con- 
demns is that in which egotism and vanity 
figure most conspicuously, and in which no- 
toriety, the praise and admiration of the world, 
wealth, and personal aggrandizement are the 
object sought, rather than the power to be of 
use in the world, to be a leader in the service 
of humanity, and to be the noblest, best, and 
most efficient worker that one can be. 

"Oh, happy day for him who gives up striv- 
ing to be richer, wiser, more clever than his 
fellows, and settles down content to be him- 
self! And when abates the fever of possession 
and he perceives that the riches of the rich, 
the joy of the happy, and the strength of the 
strong are his as well — then indeed for him 
has the millennium dawned." 
Shakespeare said: 

My crown is in my heart, not on my head, 
Nor decked with diamonds and Indian stones. 



290 The Joys of Living 

Nor to be seen: my crown is called content; 
A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy. 

Now and then we meet characters so en- 
trenched in Principle, so rich in personahty 
and heart graces, which money will not buy, 
that the wealthiest people might envy them. 
Although often poor in material possessions 
they are rich in heart qualities, rich in content- 
ment, in harmony, in things that are worth 
while. People who have money, but little else, 
cannot understand why they cannot purchase 
these things. They travel all over the world 
to find happiness and yet what they get is but 
a contemptible imitation of the real wealth of 
these simple, sweet, beautiful characters — 
many of whom are never able to indulge in 
life's material luxuries. 

I know a poor woman who has very Uttle 
of the good things of the world, but it is a 
rich experience to hear her tell of the wonder- 
ful beauty she sees in the landscape, in the 
seascape, in the sunsets, and in the flowers. 
She appreciates the beauties of nature spread 
all around us, which most of us see without 
thinking of or enjoying; and all the little things 



Contentment^ Secret of Happiness 291 

of life, the common experiences which most of 
us think little about, are full of rich meaning 
for her and give her infinite pleasure. 

Did you ever stop to consider that in all 
probability you are just as truly living right 
at this moment, as you ever can hve, that you 
are just now going through the only sort of 
life you may ever experience on this earth? 

The habit of thinking and asserting that 
things are as you would like to have them, as 
they ought to be, holding tenaciously the 
mental picture of yourself as you want to be, 
thinking and asserting your wholeness, com- 
pleteness, and that you cannot lack anything, 
because you are one with the All- Good, one 
with the Principle that made you, will not 
alone help you to realize your desires, but also 
will give you a marvelous sense of serenity 
and contentment. 

The life follows the thought. When the 
mind dwells upon a certain hne of thought for 
a long time, it tends to bring the whole life 
into harmony with it. The constant dwelling 
upon and contemplating the beautiful, sub- 
lime, noble, and true, and the effort to in- 



292 The Joys of Living 

corporate them into the life, make the char- 
acter beautiful. Our longings, our desires, 
are out-pictured in our lives. The desire is 
the pattern the life processes tend to reproduce. 

Many of us instead of finding our happiness 
in things close at hand and in our every-day 
associations, in our work and experience, look 
to the future and long for other days and other 
conditions, when we assure ourselves we shall 
obtain perfect happiness. It is but a vain 
dream! That hour never comes and never 
will. 

"He who does not find content and satis- 
faction to-day, who does not rejoice in the 
sunshine and the blessings God gives him 
moment by moment, will never find the path 
to Paradise and will live and die discon- 
tented." 

It is out of the ordinary duties, the common 
routine affairs of the ordinary day, in the 
home, in the store, in the factory, dealing with 
common, homely, every-day duties, that we 
manufacture life and all that it means to us. 
The extraordinary, unusual things do not 
affect us nearly so much as the common ordi- 



Contentment^ Secret of Happiness 293 

nary affairs of our daily life, which are con- 
stantly molding us. 

When will people learn that happiness is 
as legitimate a product of our thought, our 
effort, our aims and ambitions, our mental at- 
titude, our outlook upon life, as the correct 
answer to a mathematical problem is the re- 
sult of scientific procedure? Somehow most 
people seem to think that happiness can be 
found — just as people find gold; that there 
is a great deal of luck about it. 

To many, happiness is a sort of Captain 
Kidd's treasure, and they bankrupt themselves 
of the real sources of pleasure, health, content- 
ment, family affection, feverishly to seek a 
mythical hoard of gold. 

Undoubtedly, ambition stands in the way of 
more people's contentment and happiness 
than almost anything else. The foolish 
determination to do what others do, to get 
ahead of others and to be able to live as they 
do, to have the luxuries and comforts of people 
who are better off than they — this over-vault- 
ing ambition is one of the great happiness 
enemies. 



294 The Joys of Living 

It is a false ambition which keeps us puUing 
and hauHng and straining to do something 
which somebody else has done, not because we 
need it ourselves, not because it would add a 
particle to our comfort or real welfare, or be- 
cause it is really worth while, but because we 
are eaten up with the canker of an over-vault- 
ing ambition, the chief element of which is 
selfishness, the desire to outshine others, to 
outdo theni, to get ahead of them, to live a little 
better off than they, to have a little better 
home, a little better house in a little better part 
of the town, to dress our children a little bet- 
ter, to surround ourselves with more luxuries. 
But, after all, are these things really helpful, 
are they really worth while? Growth, en- 
largement of life, enrichment of one's nature 
— these are the things that are worth while. 
It is the ambition to be a man, to stand for 
more in the community, to push our horizon of 
ignorance farther and farther away from us, 
to think a little higher each day, to think a 
little more of ourselves, to have a little more 
faith in ourselves and in everybody else, an 
ambition to be of real use in the world, which. 



Contentment, Secret of Happiness 295 

if achieved, will bring contentment and true 
happiness. 

Everywhere we see lopped, one-sided, un- 
balanced men, mere dwarfs or apologies of 
the men God intended, who have starved their 
social and esthetic faculties, their symmetry, 
their mental growth, in their restless strife to 
put a httle more money into their purse. 

What will a man not do when drunk with 
an over-leaping, inordinate ambition! Multi- 
tudes have sacrificed family, homes, friend- 
ships, health, comforts, and honor itself, to 
appease that awful burning fever within, that 
terrible craving of the ambition for more, 
more, that perpetual hunger and thirst which 
are never satisfied. 

On every hand we see men whose faculties 
have become marbleized by following avari- 
cious ambition. Grasping greed, like the star- 
ling which ever cries, "More, more," chokes all 
their nobler aspirations, blighting all that is 
fine, delicate, and sensitive in their natures, 
until they become blunt and irresponsive to all 
that is beautiful, sweet, and true. 

Oh, what a pitiable sight is that of a human 



296 The Joys of Living 

being in the mad clutches of a greedy aim I 
When a man has once become the victim of a 
selfish, sordid, money-mad ambition, he is prac- 
tically dead to all that is best in life. He does 
not appreciate the glory and the grandeur, the 
sublimity, of existence. His pleasures are all 
of the coarser, animal kind. 

How we deceive ourselves by this mirage of 
the future, which a selfish ambition pictures! 
We are always getting ready to live, neglect- 
ing the present, focusing our eyes upon the 
future, always straining for something yet to 
come, and never half appreciating what we 
have, or enjoying as we go along. 

Is there anything more foolish than the idea 
that many people possess that the future will 
be very different from the present? Is there 
any reason for thinking that to-morrow will 
be any different from to-day? Why do we 
allow the mirage of to-morrow to keep our 
eyes from the beauties of to-day? Why do 
we allow anticipated joys to blind us to those 
that are close by us? We trample down the 
violets and the daisies trying to reach the 
larger blossoms on the trees. 



Contentment, Secret of Happiness 297 

Woe be to him who caters to a selfish am- 
bition, and follows it blindly, who expects it to 
give him peace of mind when it is reahzed ; for 
the more a greedy ambition is fed, the more 
ravenous its appetite ! It is like the fire-water 
in the enchanted story; the more the victim 
drinks of it, the greater his burning fever. 

A selfish ambition is a fatal guide, and will 
surely wreck the happiness of those who follow 
it. It will rob one of all that is dearest and 
sweetest in hfe. It will murder his enjoyment 
as he goes along, by holding up alluring pic- 
tures of the future, which will never become 
realities. Oh, what a fatal price men have 
paid for the mad following of this will-o'-the- 
wisp, ambition! What tragedies have fol- 
lowed it! 

The majority of men seem to think they can 
purchase happiness. They may purchase ani- 
mal pleasures, but the stimulation of the 
nerves, the titillation of the nervous system is 
a very cheap and comparatively low pleasure, 
and does not even approximate to joy or hap- 
piness, which is not purchasable, except by 
merit. They mistake pleasure for happiness. 



298 The Joys of Living 

No one has yet been able to bribe real happi- 
ness. There is one price for it, and the poor 
may gain it as well as the rich. 

The world is full of happiness, and there is 
always plenty to go round, if we are only will- 
ing to take the kind that comes our way. 

Most people seek happiness selfishly. They 
try to find something which will make them 
feel more comfortable, give some sort of ease- 
ment to their disagreeable feelings and bad 
moods. The great majority of people in this 
world have an idea that happiness consists in 
the satisfaction which comes from gratified 
desires. But this is always a delusion; the 
satiety of desire is always followed by a re- 
action, an ever-increased call for more gratifi- 
cation. The appetite of passion survives all 
possibilities of satisfaction. The more it is 
indulged, the more imperious the craving. 
The appetite survives even when the victim is 
exhausted. The animal thirst can never be 
quenched. 

How often we hear people give expression 
to the thought that they don't get much out of 
life anyway! Now this very spirit of trying 



Contentment, Secret of Happiness 299 

to see how much they can get out of hfe is 
what causes them to get so little. It is the 
people who put the most into hfe that get the 
most out of it. A farmer might as well sit 
still and see how much he can get out of his 
farm without sowing and planting. It is the 
people who give the most to life who get the 
most out of it. With many people life seems 
something to plunder instead of to cultivate 
to the utmost. 

Just hke the farmer who would till a par- 
ticular piece of land from which he is trying 
to win a prize, you must put as much as you 
can into life, make it just as rich as possible. 
Put love and contentment into it, cheerfulness 
and unselfish service, then you will not go 
around complaining that you get so little out 
of life, that the world has no reward to offer 
you. 

"There is a good, healthful discontent, and 
there is a bad, unwholesome discontent," says 
Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 

."Unless you have a grateful heart, a heart 
which lifts itself in earnest thanks to God for 
something, then your discontent is probably 



300 The Joys of Living 

purely selfish. There can be no life which 
does not contain son/ething to be grateful for, 
and the habit of gratitude is one of the most 
powerful assets of success and happiness which 
can be named. 

''If you wake in the morning and say, T 
thank God for this new day of life and for 
whatever blessings are mine,' then you can 
safely say to yourself and to your Creator, 
afterward, that you are not satisfied with your 
environment or with your situation, and ask 
for strength and guidance to change it and 
better it." 

Real happiness comes from the cultivation, 
the development, of the highest that is in us. 
Selfishness can never bring happiness, because 
it is constantly developing, enlarging the 
greedy, grasping nature, is constantly en- 
couraging the very thing which leads us away 
from happiness. You will not find happiness 
unless you seek it with a pure heart, with a 
clean mind, a noble purpose, with unselfish 
aim and unselfish desire for the welfare of 
others. 

Suppose that the way does look dark to you ; 



Contentment, Secret of Happiness 301 

that you see no light, no opening; do not take 
it for granted that there is no way out for you ; 
that you will have no way to express what God 
has locked up in you just because you happen 
to be temporarily tied to an iron environment 
and see no way of getting away from it. 
Wait, and work, and have faith. The closing 
of one door always means the opening of an- 
other. 

The right mental attitude is a powerful 
magnet, and whatever you desire to have or to 
be, you should affirm constantly to yourself 
that you have that thing, that you are what 
you long to be. If you wish to be well and 
strong, if you wish to have vigorous health, to 
have plenty instead of poverty, constantly say 
to yourself, "I am well; I live in abundance; 
there can be no lack, no poverty, no want, in 
my life; I am wealth because I am principle." 

How can people expect to become happy 
and contented who are always dwelling upon 
their miseries, misfortunes, and sorrows, al- 
ways expressing discontent in their thoughts 
and actions ? There is no philosophy by which 
a negative mental attitude will produce its 



302 The Joys of Living 

opposite. Like thought, like man. Our state 
of mind is the logical result of our thought. 
The only happiness that can possibly come to 
you is the scientific product of your thinking 
and your getting. If you are dissatisfied with 
the kind of happiness you have had, and will 
analyze it, you will find it is absolutely just. 
It is merely the result, the scientific product, 
of past experiences, thoughts, and actions. So, 
if you are discontented and miserable, you will 
find that you alone are to blame. If you had 
used the ingredients which form real happi- 
ness you could no more have failed to have 
obtained the result than you can fail to get the 
right answer to a mathematical problem when 
you have followed the mathematical law. 

It will do you no good to chase all over the 
world trying to find happiness. If you do not 
carry it with you you will never find it. His- 
tory is strewn with wrecks of those who pur- 
sued happiness desperately all their lives and 
never once caught up with it, while multitudes 
of others who never thought much about hap- 
piness, but were intensely busy with their 
duties, busy trying to provide for the home 



Contentment, Secret oe Happiness 303 

and those dear to them and to make life a little 
easier, a little more comfortable, for those 
about them, were surprised to find that it 
came to them unsought. 

"The pitiful part of this inalienable right 
to the pursuit of happiness," says Charles 
Dudley Warner, "is, however, that most men 
interpret it to mean the pursuit of wealth, and 
strive for that always, postponing being happy 
until they get a fortune, and if they are lucky 
in that, find in the end that happiness has 
somehow eluded them, that, in short, they 
have not cultivated that in themselves which 
alone can bring happiness." 

I know a man who has made quite a dis- 
tinguished success in his specialty and yet he 
is as uneasy, dissatisfied, and discontented as 
any man I know. He is always comparing 
himself with people who have been more suc- 
cessful, who have done more and better work 
in his line and who have accumulated more 
money. The sight of people who have gotten 
along faster, the thought of their living better, 
or having a better reputation, more fame, ir- 
ritates him. His eyes are so intent upon 



304 The Joys of Living 

others' accomplishments and what they have 
that he seems Wind to what he has accomplished 
and what he has. His own humbler surround- 
ings mean scarcely anything to him. 

He has an ideal family, a noble wife, superb 
children, and although his home is not as sump- 
tuous or commodious, nor his environment as 
luxurious or grand as that of some of his 
neighbors, yet he has a multitude of advantages 
over them. Somehow, his strong constitution, 
his healthy and harmonious family do not seem 
to count for very much with him. 

He has a far-away look in his eyes ; his gaze 
is so set upon what others do and what others 
have, that he does not seem to know how to 
appreciate his own, and he is always castigating 
himself for not working harder, and getting 
on more rapidly, notwithstanding the fact that 
he is always overworking and never takes 
time to cultivate friendships or to enjoy social 
life. 

Now, if this man would only realize the fact, 
he could revolutionize his mental attitude in a 
few months so that he would be a completely 
changed man. If every day he would stop for 



Contentment^ Secret of Happiness 305 

a few minutes and empty his mind of his envy 
and jealousy, and would thrust out his false 
ambition and try to appreciate his own instead 
of forever thinking of what others have, if 
every morning he would congratulate himself 
upon his good fortune in having such a happy 
and harmonious family — a beautiful wife and 
fine robust children, when many of those whom 
he envies have to bear all sorts of marital dis- 
cords and troubles, frivolous wives and de- 
formed and even imbecile children — he would 
learn to appreciate his own blessings. In 
thinking how fortunate he is in his happy en- 
vironment, he would develop a capacity for 
appreciation, and what others have would lose 
its pecuhar fascination. 

Many of us miss the joys that might be ours 
by keeping our eyes fixed on those of other 
people. No one can enjoy his own oppor- 
tunities for happiness while he is envious of 
another's. We lose a great deal of the joy of 
living by not cheerfully accepting the small 
pleasures that come to us every day, instead 
of longing and wishing for what belongs to 
others. We do not take any pleasure in our 



306 The Joys of Living 

own modest car, because we long for the 
luxurious limousine that some one else owns. 
The edge is taken oif the enjoyment of our 
own little home because we are watching the 
palatial residence of our neighbor. We can 
get no satisfaction out of a trolley ride into 
the country or a sail on a river steamer, be- 
cause some one else can enjoy the luxury of 
his own touring car or yacht. Life has its 
full measure of happiness for every one of us, 
if we would only make up our minds to make 
the very most of every opportunity that comes 
our way, instead of longing for the things that 
come our neighbor's way. 

How many of us are like the buttercup that 
grew in the field beside the daisy. The butter- 
cup was discontented and envied the daisy 
"for daisies grow so trim and tall," and she 
always had a longing to wear a frill around 
her neck too. But a robin, who was flying by, 
heard her lamentation and told her how foolish 
she was to want to be a made-up daisy instead 
of her own bright self. He told her to 

"Look bravely up into the sky 
And be content with knowing 



Contentment, Secret of Happiness 307 

That God wished for a buttercup 
Just here where you are growing." 

A discontented, discordant mortal is no 
more a man than discord is music. 

Robert Burns described the happy man 
when he said he was contented with httle and 
happy with more. 

"Be content with such things as ye have," 
says the Apostle. Such noble contentment 
opens the way to larger fullness and satisfac- 
tion. 

The power of the will, the influence of our 
own mind, the way we accept life, the interpre- 
tation we give to facts and experiences is a 
determining factor in our enjoyment or dis- 
appointment in this world. 



XX 

HOME JOY KILLERS 

"We have careful thought for the stranger. 
And smiles for the sometime guest; 
But oft for *our own' the bitter tone, 
Though we love our own the best." 

Did you ever come across the American hog 
at home — the man who is so affable, such a 
genial good fellow in the club down-town and 
among his men friends and business associates, 
but who, when in his home, throws off his mask 
and feels no obligation to restrain himself or 
to temper his language; the man who finds 
fault with everything, abuses everybody, criti- 
cises everything, who storms about the house 
like a mad bull when he is out of sorts and 
things do not please him? 

We have all undoubtedly met this man, the 
good fellow at the club and the hog at home. 

The American hog at home is a very curious 
animal. I have seen him in the midst of a 
terrible rage when he seemed to be the play- 
thing of his passion, become as gentle and 

308 



Home Joy Killers 309 

docile as a lamb in an instant with the ringing 
of a door-bell and the announcing of com- 
pany. It would seem as though there must 
be some magical connection between the door- 
bell and this man's temper. 

When it did not seem possible for him to 
get control of himself, he did not have the 
slightest difficulty in calming down in an in- 
stant's time when a caller was announced, thus 
proving that this matter of self-control was 
largely one of vanity, self -pride. He would 
be mortally ashamed to have the callers see the 
hog husband that was there when the door- 
bell rang. 

We often see him in the home sitting cross, 
crabbed, glum, during the entire evening and 
at meals, without making the slightest effort 
to be agreeable. At the club or in his busir- 
ness dealings, even if things go wrong, he feels 
obliged to restrain himself and be decent be- 
cause he would not have his business friends 
see him with his mask off. He has too much 
pride and vanity for that. But when he is at 
home he thinks he is under no obligation to be 
agreeable; he thinks he has a perfect right to 



310 The Joys of Living 

do just what he feels like doing, and to be 
just as mean, hateful, and disagreeable as he 
wants to be. He makes no attempt to restrain 
or control himself. 

Such boorishness and lack of companion- 
ableness between husband and wife are among 
the most common domestic joy killers. 

Of course the woman is often at fault, but 
she is more naturally a home maker at heart 
than the man. He is more selfish and apt to 
be indifferent to the home, and he is the one 
who needs to be roused to the responsibility of 
making home happy, and marriage full of 
mutual joy in giving. 

"If there are women who do not, by study 
and that best companionship which they could 
offer to their husbands, truly learn rightly to 
play the part of helpmeets, there are far more 
men who, for one selfish reason or another, 
never give their wives the opportunity," writes 
Mrs. John Logan. 

A woman's thirst for sympathy and close 
companionship is very difficult for the average 
man to comprehend. It would be as impossi- 
ble for a woman to live her normal life under 



Home Joy Killers 311 

abuse or indifference without sympathetic 
companionship, as for a rose to develop its 
normal beauty and fragrance without sun- 
shine. This is often the reason why so many 
wives seek elsewhere the sympathy which their 
husbands deny them. 

There are men who think that if they do not 
actually strike their wives, if they provide a 
house and clothing for them, they ought to be 
satisfied and happy. But these things will 
never insure happiness to the kind of a woman 
you would desire your wife to be, my friend. 

It often occurs that a man marries a beauti- 
ful, bright, cheerful girl who was always bub- 
bling over with animal spirits, and in a short 
time everybody notices a complete change in 
her character, brought about by the perpetual 
suppression of her husband, who if not actu- 
ally brutal is severe in his criticisms and un- 
reasonable in his demands. The wife is 
surrounded with this joy-killing atmosphere 
of sharp criticism or severity until she entirely 
loses her naturalness and spontaneity, and 
self-expression becomes impossible. The re- 
sult is an artificial, flavorless character. 



312 The Joys of Living 

Think of the suffering of a wife who feels 
her spirits gradually drying up, and her buoy- 
ancy and youthfulness evaporating; her 
beauty, her attractiveness gradually fading; in 
fact, her ambition strangled, her whole life be- 
ing blighted in a cold, loveless environment. 

Some one recently told me that not once 
during several months which they spent at the 
home of friends did they see the husband dis- 
play the slightest sigri of affection for his wife, 
although she is a woman vastly superior to 
him in every way. 

She has dragged out an unloved, miserable 
existence for more than a quarter of a century, 
with a husband who is cold and absolutely in- 
different to her comfort, pleasure, or happi- 
ness. Not once in a year does he take her 
anywhere. He is practically never seen with 
her away from home. He never thinks she 
needs an outing, a vacation, or a change. 
When he travels, he goes alone or in the com- 
pany of others, never even suggesting that his 
wife accompany him. This man is not unkind 
or cruel, he is only indifferent to his wife. He 
has not a particle of sentiment for her. 



Home Joy Killers 313 

To many women indifference is worse than 
cruelty, if the cruel husband shows at least a 
little affection now and then. Utter indiffer- 
ence is one of the things that the feminine 
heart cannot endure without keen suffering. 

Indifference and cruelty are evident forms 
of selfishness, the root of domestic unhappi- 
ness. Less evident, perhaps, is that self-love 
which many men mistake for love of their 
wives. It is a sort of projection of themselves 
with which they are in love. They think more 
of their own comfort, their own well-being, 
their own ambitions, their own pleasure, than 
they do of the highest welfare of their wives. 

Many such men do not mean to be selfish in 
their home life, and really believe they are gen- 
erous, but their minds are so focused upon 
themselves and their ambition that they can 
only think of a wife in reference to themselves. 
Whereas the highest love has the highest wel- 
fare of the individual at heart, not its own. 

It is fortunate for the world that a woman's 
love is not so selfish, not so self -centered as a 
man's. If it were, civilization would go back 
to barbarism. 



314 The Joys of Living 

When a woman has given up everything for 
a husband who, before marriage was always 
bringing her flowers and showing other httle 
evidences of his affection, who was generous 
and loving and kind, but who afterwards sel- 
dom thinks of these little attentions so much 
appreciated by women, but is often indiiFerent, 
cross, and fault-finding, she cannot help feel- 
ing unhappy at the contrast. 

It does not seem possible that a man who 
could be so affectionate, kind, and considerate 
while pursuing the object of his regard, could 
become indifferent and cruel after he had se- 
cured the prize; but this is true of multitudes 
of men. 

With many men romance ends with mar- 
riage, as a hunter's interest dies with the game 
when he has fired the shot that kills. 

I have been in the home of a married couple 
where the husband showed the greatest lack of 
feeling for his wife, and treated her more as a 
menial than as a companion. If she com- 
plained of a headache, or of feeling unwell, he 
never showed any sympathy for her, but, on 
the contrary, appeared to be provoked, and 
often made sarcastic remarks. 



Home Joy Killers 315 

He never tried in any way to lighten her 
burdens, nor showed her any special attention. 
He was not even pohte to her. He would take 
no part of the responsibility of training the 
children or of conducting the household. 
He said he would not be bothered with such 
things. 

He spent most of his evenings at the clubs, 
or in the company of women whom he con- 
sidered more attractive than his wife, and upon 
whom he spent money freely; but he was ex- 
tremely penurious with his wife, and made her 
give an account of what she did with every 
penny. 

He became so brazen in his open association 
with other women that he often took them to 
his own home, where his wife, who was suffer- 
ing tortures, tried to receive them graciously 
and to treat them kindly. 

If there is any person who needs pity in the 
world, it is the wife who gives love and makes 
perpetual sacrifices in return for indiJBFerence, 
neglect, and even cruelty. Is it not a crime 
for a man to take a beautiful, affectionate, 
buoyant girl from a happy home, after a ro- 
mantic courtship, and then crush her spirit, 



316 The Joys of Living 

and freeze her love by cold, heartless indiffer- 
ence and selfishness; to wreck her happiness? 
Can any greater disappointment come into a 
woman's life than to see her dream of love, 
marriage, and a happy home blighted by cold- 
hearted, indifferent, cruel neglect? 

Jealousy and suspicion poison the atmos- 
phere of the family. The home joy cannot 
live where they are entertained. At the out- 
set young people who marry should resolve 
never to permit the sun to go down on their 
wrath. Lovers fondly fancy that they will 
never have a quarrel. However, most hus- 
bands and wives occasionally have little differ- 
ences which need not amount to much if they 
simply follow one rule: never to go to sleep at 
night except in friendly harmony. If there 
has been a disturbance of peace, settle it be- 
fore bedtime. If either has done or said any- 
thing to wound the other, confess and seek 
forgiveness before the head touches the pil- 
low. 

"We take offense too easily," writes some 
one. "I know cases of husbands and wives 
who, in a discussion over a matter of perhaps 
no real importance, get offended with each 



Home Joy Killers 317 

other, and the husband goes away without his 
usual morning kiss, — goes down town and is 
miserable all day long, and the wife stays at 
home and is miserable all day long; and over 
what? They forget the time when she was 
the one ideal of all that was beautiful; they 
forget the time when he was the one hero 
picked out of all the sons of earth. For a 
contemptible, petty little nothing they think 
unkindly and harshly of each other. Is a 
little trifle like that worth purchasing at the 
price of the happiness of a day? How petty 
it is! If people would only stop and think, 
they would be ashamed of themselves, and ask 
each other's pardon, and devote themselves to 
creating sunshine and peace instead of getting 
offended over things that are of no earthly ac- 
count, looked at from any point of view." 

How true are the following lines of the late 
Margaret Sangster: 

If I had known in the morning 

How wearily all the day 
The words unkind would trouble my mind 

That I said when you went away, 
I had been more careful, darling. 

Nor given you needless pain; 
But we vex our own with look and tone 

We may never take back again. 



318 The Joys of Living 

For though in the quiet evening 

You may give me the kiss of peace, 
Yet it well might be that never for me 

The pain of the heart should cease! 
How many go forth at morning, 

Who never come home at night! 
And hearts have broken for harsh words spoken, 

That sorrow can ne'er set right. , 

We have careful thought for the stranger, 

And smiles for the sometime guest; 
But oft for "our own" the bitter tone. 

Though we love our own the best. 
Ah ! lips with the curve impatient. 

Ah ! brow with the shade of scorn, 
'Twere a cruel fate, were the night too late 

To undo the work of the morn! 



*'You have been the best mother in the 
world," cried a son to his mother on her death- 
bed. She was a widow who had struggled 
hard to support her son. She took in washing 
and did scrubbing in order to send him to col- 
lege, but this was the first time that her son had 
ever told her that she had been a good mother. 
She turned her dpng eyes upon him and said, 
''Why didn't you say so before, John?" 

Think what it would have meant to this 
poor, hard-working mother if her son had only 
shown his love and appreciation for her during 



Home Joy Killers 319 

her lifetime! How it would have brightened 
up her long, weary years! 

''If folks could have their funerals when they 
are alive and well and struggling along, what 
a help it would be!" sighed Mrs. Perkins, upon 
returning from a funeral, wondering how poor 
Mrs. Brown would have felt if she could have 
heard what the minister said. "Poor soul, she 
never dreamed they set so much by her! 

"Mis' Brown got discouraged. Ye see, 
Deacon Brown, he'd got a way of blaming 
everything on to her. I don't suppose the 
deacon meant it, — 'twas just his way, — but it's 
awful wearing. When things wore out or 
broke, he acted just as if Mis' Brown did it 
herself on purpose ; and they all caught it, like 
the measles or the whooping-cough." 

Just think of what a woman who has a half 
dozen children has to endure if she is obliged to 
do all her work, — sewing, cooking, washing, 
and cleaning — ^without even the assistance of 
a hired girl. How long could a man stand 
this kind of an existence, shut up in a house or 
a little flat year in and year out, rarely ever 
going anywhere, with very little variety or 



320 The Joys of Living 

change? How would he keep his cheer? A 
few days of confinement in the home is about 
all most men can stand, especially if their rest 
is disturbed at night by sick children. 

Most men little realize how rapidly a woman 
fades and uses herself up and loses her cheer 
when she works like a slave all day and long 
into the night, caring for a large family. Just 
because a wife is willing to do everything she 
can to help her husband, is no reason why he 
should allow her to ruin her health and attract- 
iveness, rob her of the zest for living, in the 
operation. There is nothing more wearing 
and exasperating, nothing which will grind life 
away more rapidly than monotonous, exacting 
housework. A man has a great variety dur- 
ing the day in his business; but his wife slaves 
at home and rarely gets any variety. How is 
she to keep joy in the home for the children, or 
for guests and friends? 

She is plodding and digging all day long, 
year in and year out, cleaning, scrubbing, 
mending clothes, caring for the children, — a 
work which grinds life away rapidly, because 
of the drudgery and monotony of it. 



Home Joy Killers 321 

The husband has constant change which 
rests and refreshes him; but to the average 
wife it is one dull, monotonous routine of hard, 
exacting, exasperating toil. And yet the wife 
and mother should be the fountain-head of joy 
in the home. 

Many a man is cross and crabbed when he 
comes home, just because his wife is not quite 
as buoyant and cheerful and entertaining as 
he thinks she ought to be after a nerve-racking, 
exacting day's work. What does he do to 
make the evening pleasant for her? How 
many times during the last year has he taken 
his wife out to entertainments or to dinner? 
When did he last take her away on a Uttle trip ? 
How long has it been since he brought her 
home some flowers, confectionery, a book, or 
some other little gift which would tell her that 
he was thoughtful of her? How often has he 
given up his club, or the society of his com- 
panions, or his own pleasure to remain home 
and help his wife take care of the children, 
or make the evening delightful for his fam- 
ily? 

The home has the misfortune of being a 



322 T he Joys of Living 

place where all the tired, cross, exhausted, 
played-out members of the family meet at 
night, often after a trying, perplexing day's 
work. The children are cross and tired from 
school or play; things have gone wrong with 
the father, there has been discord and trouble 
in the office, store, or factory. He has seen 
merchandise spoiled, broken, misdirected, by 
indifferent, blundering, careless employees. 
His partners were cross and crabbed because 
they started out wrong in the morning with 
disputes, friction at home. Poor business, 
tight money, ever-increasing competition, — 
all these things focus upon the father during 
the day, and totally unfit him to contribute his 
part towards the ideal home life in the even- 
ing. 

In addition to all this, the husband does not 
feel the same restraint in the home. He has 
managed to be half decent during the day- 
time, because so many eyes were watching 
him; his pride and vanity have kept him from 
making a fool of himself before others. But 
when he gets home, under his own roof, he 
asks himself, why shouldn't he throw off his 



Home Joy Killers 323 

restraint and do as he feels like doing — mak- 
ing a kicking post of his home, making it un- 
pleasant for everybody? 

Saving only the dregs for the home, exas- 
perated nerves and jaded energies, is a very 
short-sighted policy. Thousands of homes in 
this country are made up of shreds and patches. 
All we find there is the by-product of a man's 
occupation. Many a man gives the home what 
he has left over, — the crumbs, the odds and 
ends. Instead of bringing to it his freshest 
energies, his buoyant spirits, he often comes a 
physical wreck. He remains in the store or 
office as long as there is anything left of him 
that is any good. Then he goes home, and he 
wonders why the children avoid him, why they 
do not run and throw their arms about his neck, 
delighted to see him. 

The children know that when such a father 
reaches home their fun is pretty nearly over. 
They do not see anything very interesting or 
attractive in his long, tired face. Of course 
there is no spring in his dragging, hesitating 
steps. They know there is no vitality left for 
a romp with them on the floor or on the lawn. 



324 The Joys of Living 

They know they have to keep quiet or they will 
be sent to bed or out of the room. 

Make the meal time an occasion to be looked 
forward to by every member of the family for 
a good time, for hearty laughter, and for 
bright, entertaining conversation. Train the 
children to bring their best moods and to say 
their brightest and best things at the table. 
If this practice were generally put in force it 
would revolutionize American homes and drive 
the doctors to despair. 

With some families joking and funny story 
telling at meals has become such an established 
feature that it is a real joy to dine with them. 
The dinner hour is sure to afford a jolly good 
time. There is a rivalry among the members 
to see who can say the brightest, wittiest thing, 
or tell the best story. There is no dyspepsia, 
no nagging in such a family. 

Make a business of having a good time after 
dinner or after supper, and during your holi- 
days. Let your presence in the home be a 
signal to the children for a romp and a play 
and a good time generally. Just make up 
your mind that you are going to make your 



Home Joy Killers 325 

home the happiest place on earth — so happy 
and so attractive that your children will pre- 
fer spending an evening there to going any- 
where else. Do not be afraid of a little noise, 
or of a little scratched or broken furniture 
now and then. This is infinitely better than 
stunted childhood, dyspepsia, and doctors' 
bills. The growth of many a child has been 
starved and stunted to save a little furniture, 
bric-a-brac, or clothing. 

The average modern man has taken the 
cream off his energies during the daytime, and 
brings home only the skimmed milk, and this 
is often very sour. Then he wonders why his 
wife is not as bright and as agreeable as she 
used to be! He cannot see the poor, mean, 
miserable, starved part of himself that he 
brings to her, and he expects her to match it all 
with the same charm and sweetness, the same 
joyous response that she gave him when he 
brought the best part of himself to her. His 
weariness and depression cannot summon forth 
that happy response; they paralyze the chil- 
dren's play; they strangle the home joy. 



XXI 

THE POWER OF THE HOME JOY 

Over the roofs of the village 
Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense ascending, 
Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and content- 
ment. 

There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance. 

— Longfellow. 

Some of the happiest homes I have ever 
known, ideal homes, where intelligence, peace, 
and harmony dwell, have been homes of poor 
people. No rich carpets covered the floors; 
there were no costly paintings on the walls, no 
piano, no library, no works of art. But there 
were contented minds, devoted and unselfish 
lives, each contributing as much as possible to 
the happiness of all, and endeavoring to com- 
pensate by intelligence and kindness for the 
poverty of their surroundings. 

What a pitiable sight to see a man strug- 
gling with all his might to pile up a big for- 
tune, and yet utterly neglecting the very thing 

396 



The Power of Home Joy 327 

for which he was born — self -enlargement and 
happiness shared with wife and children. 

Gold can buy and furnish houses but no 
money ever yet bought or made a home; yet 
what wealth of tenderness, of self-sacrifice, of 
kindliness, of peace have transformed the hum- 
blest dwellings into treasure-houses of the 
heart? 

A young husband should remember that a 
woman sacrifices infinitely more for the man 
she loves than he does for her, and he should 
study to prevent early disappointments. If 
both husband and wife could do this for one 
another, the divorce courts would be without 
business. 

Men often think that they are superior to 
their wives because they are the family pro- 
viders ; that it requires superior ability to earn 
money. As a fact much of their success is due 
to the wife's influence, due to her tact and 
ability to keep her home happy and her hus- 
band in good working trim, to keep him from 
worrying, to keep him from dissipation, and 
all sorts of things which, but for her, might 
cripple his earning capacity and lower his 
efficiency. 



328 The Joys of Living 

Most men are much saner, much more nor- 
mal and level-headed, economical and careful, 
on account of their wives. A model home is a 
great corrective for a man. It keeps him up 
to standard, and saves him from getting blue 
and discouraged. It develops the affection- 
ate side of his nature and renders his character 
stronger and more symmetrical. Men can 
produce very much more because of harmony 
and affection in the home. 

I have known and know now many women 
who claim nothing and who get no credit from 
the world, who are, none the less, the real 
brains behind a statesman's reputation. And 
there are others who assist their husbands in 
such secrecy that the fact that they are helping 
is hidden, even from the husband. 

Some one has said that "marriage is an epi- 
sode in the life of a man, an epoch in the life 
of a woman." Many men are not so firmly 
attached to their wives by their affection as 
their wives are to them. A devoted wife is apt 
to overlook a man's weaknesses. She does not 
realize that his love is more easily detached 
than hers, and that the same things which she 



The Power of Home Joy 329 

was so particular about before marriage are 
the very things that will hold him after mar- 
riage, that these are her magic and her power. 

Man does not love in the same way as a 
woman does. There is more selfishness in his 
affection. When a good woman has given 
her love it is for all time; and her love is less 
selfish and her devotion is not as dependent 
upon the man's attractiveness as is his for her. 

It is true that married women often make 
the fatal mistake of not making themselves 
attractive in every possible way after marriage 
as they did before. They think that they can 
hold their husband's love and admiration upon 
their real worth, regardless of their personal 
charms, dress, or appearance. 

If you are disappointed in your life partner 
examine yourself and see if you are not partly 
at fault. There is no encouragement to a 
woman to fix herself up prettily for a man who 
never looks at her, and never notices what she 
has on or how her hair is arranged, unless it be 
to criticise it unfavorably. It is not easy for 
a woman to be bright and entertaining when 
she talks to a man who merely grunts or scowls 



330 The Joys of Living 

in reply. Single handed and alone she cannot 
make the home joy. 

Why should you speak to your wife in a tone 
of voice that you would not dare to use toward 
another woman? 

Try the praise plan, the appreciation plan, 
for a while. Give up fault-finding. 

"Praise is a heart stimulant. Blame is a 
heart depressant," says Dorothy Dix. 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox says: "If you knew 
your marital partner would be dead a year 
from to-day, how would you conduct yourself 
for the next twelve months? 

"Would you lose your temper over trifles, 
and spoil your own and another's comfort be- 
cause there was a late meal, or a mistake about 
the time or place you were to meet each other, 
and would you nag and irritate and antagonize 
the one you are bound to for life? 

"I am sure you would not. You would be 
very considerate and patient and kind, know- 
ing the face you looked upon was so soon to 
be hidden from your sight- — the voice you 
listened to so soon to be stilled. You would 
think of all that man's or woman's virtues ; you 



The Power of Home Joy 331 

would recall all the early days of courtship, 
and you would make the same excuses for 
shortcomings you did in that romantic era. 

**Why not use the same forbearance, affec- 
tion, and courtesy toward the man or woman 
who is liable to hve twenty years as toward one 
who is to die very soon? If people are prop- 
erly mated, the real romance begins with mar- 
riage." 

The majority of men do not realize how lit- 
tle it takes to make a woman happy. She will 
put up with most everything, poverty and all 
sorts of hardships and make a cosy, comforta- 
ble home out of any kind of a hearth if her 
affections are satisfied. But if her heart is 
not fed, she will wither, and the best thing will 
die out of her, even though she live in a palace 
and be surrounded with regal luxuries. No 
amount of money will compensate a true 
woman for the lack of affection and apprecia- 
tion expressed by her husband in a multitude 
of little attentions and considerations. 

It should be the great aim of young married 
people to keep the commonplace out of their 
lives and maintain not only love, but the ex- 



332 The Joys of Living 

pression of it in a hundred delicate, winning 
ways. In happiness at home lies the strength 
of both. 

Not sentiment alone but practical adjust- 
ments will count for harmony and satisfaction. 
A level-headed husband should try to avoid 
every possible means of friction, and there is 
no better way of avoiding a large part of it, 
than by forming an actual partnership in which 
the wife runs the household in her own way, 
just the same as he runs his business without 
the wife's interference. The home should be 
regarded as the wife's, and she should manage 
it to suit herself. If she wishes to ask her hus- 
band's advice, all well and good, but there 
should be an understanding that the home is 
absolutely the wife's domain, that it is under 
her exclusive control, and she should be made 
to feel as independent in her realm, as the hus- 
band is in his. A great deal of the friction in 
the average home centers around financial 
matters, and could be avoided by a simple, 
definite understanding, and a business arrange- 
ment about household finances. 

As a rule, it is a very rare man who can 



The Power of Home Joy 333 

spend money for the home so wisely and with 
as good taste as can the wife. 

Fortunately it is becoming more and more 
customary for men to allow their wives a cer- 
tain proportion of the income every week or 
month, and to let them run the household as 
they see fit, and pay all the expenses without 
any question being asked as to where the 
money went to. The wife pays the provision 
bills, the servants' salaries, buys the clothing 
for the family and pays her own personal ex- 
penses. No questions are asked. She will de- 
light in her independence. Disputes are not 
as liable to arise as when money is doled out 
to the wife by piecemeal. 

When freedom and joy are the wife's share, 
they become the children's heritage. A happy 
childhood is an imperative preparation for a 
happy maturity. 

Most homes are far too serious. Why not 
let the children dance and play to their heart's 
content? They will get rubs enough, knocks 
enough in the world; they will get enough of 
the hard side of life later. Resolve that they 
shall at least be just as happy as you can make 



334 The Joys of Living 

them while at home, so that if they should have 
unfortunate experiences later, they can look 
back upon their home as a sweet, beautiful, 
charming oasis in their life; the happiest spot 
on earth. 

It is a great thing to encourage fun in the 
home. There is nothing like a fun-loving 
home. It keeps children off the streets, it 
discourages vice and all that is morbid. 

The home ought to be a sort of theater for 
fun and all sorts of sports — a place where the 
children should take the active parts, although 
the parents should come in for a share too. 
You will find that a Uttle fun in the even- 
ing, romping, and playing with the children, 
will make you sleep better. It will clear the 
physical cobwebs and brain-ash from your 
mind. You will be fresher and brighter for 
it the next day. You will be surprised to see 
how much more work you can do, and how 
much more readily you can do it if you try to 
have all the innocent fun you can. 

We have all felt the wonderful balm, the 
great uplift, the refreshment, the rejuvena- 
tion which have come from a jolly good time 



The Power of Home Joy 335 

with family or friends, when we have come 
home after a hard, exacting day's work, when 
our bodies were jaded and we were brain- 
weary and exhausted. What magic a single 
hour's fun will often work in a tired soul! 

Have music in the home. 

Music tends to restore and preserve the 
mental harmony. Nervous diseases are won- 
derfully helped by good music. It keeps one's 
mind off his troubles, and gives nature a 
chance to heal all sorts of mental discords. 

* 'Music gives a soul to the universe, wings 
to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm 
to sadness, gayety and life to everything. It 
is the essence of order, and leads to all that is 
good, just, and beautiful," says Plato. 

Happiness should begin in the home. The 
family gathering around the table for the 
evening meal should be one of chat and cheer- 
fulness. 

Swallow a lot of fun with your meals. The 
practice is splendid. It is the best thing in 
the world for your health. It is better than 
swallowing dyspepsia with every mouthful of 
food. The meal time ought to be looked for- 



336 The Joys of Living 

ward to by every member of the family as an 
occasion for a good time, for hearty laughter, 
and for bright, entertaining conversation. 
The children should be trained to bring their 
best moods and say their brightest and best 
things at the table. If this practice were put 
in force it would revolutionize American homes 
and drive the doctors to despair. 

Who could estimate what civilization owes 
to man's dream of a happy home of his own! 
What an incentive to man in all ages has been 
this vision of a home of his own ! It is this pic- 
ture which holds the youth to his task, buoys 
him up in times of hardship and discourage- 
ment. This picture of a home, this vision of 
a little cottage and some fair maiden waiting 
at the door — this home vision has ever been 
the great incentive of the struggler, the great- 
est incentive of mankind! It is the dream of 
"a home of my own" that has lifted multi- 
tudes of youths out of obscurity. There is 
no spur on earth which has had anything like 
the influence over man that this home vision 
has. The thought of his home and wife and 
children, dearer to him than life, keeps vast 



The Power of Home Joy 337 

multitudes of men grinding away at their 
dreary tasks, when they see no other light in 
the distance. 

To multitudes of people home is the only 
oasis in their desert life. 

What will men not do for the sake of the 
home? They cross oceans, they explore con- 
tinents. They endure the heat of the Tropics 
and the cold of the Arctics, they explore mines 
in the wilderness, cut themselves off from civil- 
ization for years for the sake of the home. 

Home is the sweetest word in the language. 
It has ever been the favorite theme of the poet, 
the author, and the artist. History is packed 
with the achievements of men for the sake of 
the home. The inventor, the discoverer, in all 
ages has been sacrificed for the home. 

Half the misery in the world would be 
avoided if people would make a business of 
having 'plenty of fun at home, instead of run- 
ning everywhere else in search of it. 

There is an irrepressible longing for amuse- 
ment, for rollicking fun, in young people, and 
if these longings were more fully met in the 
home it would not be so difficult to keep the 



338 The Joys of Living 

boy and girl under the parental roof. I al- 
ways think there is something wrong when 
the father or the children are so very uneasy 
to get out of the house at night and to go oiF 
"somewhere" where they will have a good 
time. A happy, joyous home is a powerful 
magnet to child and man. The sacred mem- 
ory of it has kept many a person from losing 
his self-respect, and from the commission of 
crime. 

Fun is the cheapest and best medicine in the 
world for your children as well as for your- 
self. Give it to them in good large doses. It 
will not only save you doctors' bills, but it will 
also help to make your children happier, and 
will improve their chances in life. We should 
not need half so many prisons, insane asylums, 
and almshouses if all children had a happy 
childhood. 

"Now for Rest and Happiness." "No 
Business Troubles Allowed Here." These 
are true home-building mottoes. The home 
joy is the greatest power for good in the world. 



XXII 

THE DANGERS OF THWARTED AMBITION 

"I hold it the duty of one who is gifted. 
And specially dowered in all men's sight. 
To know no rest till his life is lifted 
Fully up to his great gift's height." 

How often we see a bright, enthusiastic, am- 
bitious girl, with a passion for music, and great 
talent, marry a business man, and become 
buried in a home. Her husband may love her 
deeply, but he may not have the least sympathy 
with or appreciation of his wife's special talent, 
or even the slightest interest in it. If, after a 
while, she begins to fade, and becomes de- 
pressed and despondent, he may think that a 
change, a trip abroad, or a better home will 
restore her cheerfulness, her charm. But they 
do not. 

There is still a great hunger for which she 
has had practically no food, a starvation going 
on in her nature, which no amount of change 
or money will satisfy, for there is something 
within us which does not feed upon money or 

339 



340 The Joys of Living 

anything that we can buy. There is a gradual 
shriveling, a pitiful shrinking, going on in her, 
a great decline of values all along the line. 

Everywhere we see people who have pre- 
maturely gone to seed. They seem to have no 
special zest in life, no great enthusiasm for any- 
thing; there is a great disappointment some- 
where in their lives. Why are they so 
unhappy? 

No one loses his interest in life, or becomes 
indifferent to his work unless he has been 
thwarted in the carrying out of his ambition 
or for some other reason has been unable to 
find his right place in life. Wherever we see 
discontent, unhappiness, unrest, we may be 
sure that the person exhibiting these conditions 
has not found his niche, or has not been able to 
carry out his ambition. For some reason his 
heart had been cheated of its ideal. 

Women have a marvelous way of hiding 
their griefs, covering up their disappointments ; 
but such disappointment may mar a whole life. 
A man, under such circumstances, would rebel ; 
but women often suffer in silence while they 
smother their ambition. 



Dangers of Thwarted Ambition 341 

Who can ever estimate the terrible tragedies 
that are being enacted in the hearts of thou- 
sands who are suffering agonies from gnawing, 
unsatisfied longings, but who are compelled to 
do the thing which they loathe because some- 
body else is dependent upon them, because 
poor invalid brothers or sisters chain them to it, 
and there is no possibility of escape? Like a 
caged eagle beating against his prison bars 
the pinions which were intended to lift him into 
the ether, they chafe against restraint; they 
swallow the great lump which rises in their 
throats, and suffer on. 

How many of those whom we criticise and 
denounce may be undergoing constant pain 
from just such limitations, through imagined 
or real imprisonment of talent! If there is 
anything pitiable in this world, it is a person 
tormented by a great ambition which cannot 
be satisfied. To feel a gnawing hunger for 
that which one can never possess is suffering 
indeed. To have no chance, to see no opening 
to do that which we yearn to do, is one of the 
inexplicable problems of life. It is hard to 
bear pain and suffer disappointment when we 



342 The Joys of Living 

are doing that which we feel we were fitted for ; 
but it takes heroic qualities to suffer in silence, 
to endure with patience, to work on faithfully, 
when the heart has been cheated of its ideal, 
the ambition disappointed, and hope has gone 
out of the life. We long for freedom, we want 
to soar, to try the wings God gave us; yet we 
are losing our power because we do not, cannot, 
exercise it. We are wasting life, losing 
strength in petty pursuits and enslaving drud- 
gery. 

There is no suffering, except remorse, so 
fatal as that which comes from the conscious- 
ness of strangled ambition, blasted hope, stifled 
aspiration. To be conscious that we possess 
decided ability for some particular calling, and 
to be compelled by circumstances, year after 
year, to be chained to drudgery which the heart 
loathes, requires supreme courage. To feel 
that there is no probability, or even possibility, 
of ever being able to express that great hungry 
longing, pent up in the heart, filling it almost 
to bursting, to drag through the weary years 
trying to be cheerful and hopeful and helpful to 
those we love, and yet to feel that our devotion 



Dangeks of Thwarted Ambition 343 

t ■ 

to them has made the other thing impossible 
to us, to suffer in silence disappointment which 
makes the heart sick, is the greatest test of 
real manhood, of womanhood. 

It is easy for us to criticise other people who 
have not risen in the world, as perhaps we 
have; but they may be heroes compared with 
us. We can never tell what tragedies may be 
going on in their hearts, or from what tortures 
of disappointed ambition and blasted hopes 
they may be suffering. To be compelled to 
go through life without any possibility of 
satisfying the great soul hunger, of realizing 
the infinite longings of the heart, is torture. 
There is no compensation for this except from 
the sense of duty done to others who would 
have suffered, had we tried to realize our am- 
bition. And yet, may it not be that we our- 
selves are in some measure to blame? Have 
we kept alive the soul, the core, the essence of 
our ambition? The greatest of all victories is 
the \dctory which is wrung from apparent 
defeat. 

Cling to your ideal. When one stifles his 
ambition, lets his greatest talent die within him, 



3M The Joys of Living 

his whole nature may be perverted ; he becomes 
susceptible to all sorts of temptations, and 
sometimes even develops criminal tendencies. 
The following out of our strongest bent is our 
greatest safeguard. It makes us more con- 
tented, steadies our aim, and tends to make the 
whole life normal. But no one is safe when 
for any reason he ceases to pursue his great 
passion, his highest ambition. 

It takes a strong character to enable a man 
to stand firm and true, unless he is following 
his bent, or at least approximating it. There 
is something in the pursuit of the highest am- 
bition, in full, complete self-expression, which 
satisfies the whole nature. It is to the indi- 
vidual what a family is to the young husband, 
. — ^it is a balance wheel; it steadies his move- 
ments, makes him more contented and dignifies 
his whole being. 

When a man is doing the work he loves he 
is safe from a thousand temptations which, but 
for it, would be likely to entice him into all 
sorts of things which would injure, and per- 
haps ruin, him. 

Man was made for action. The mind must 



Dangeks of Thwarted Ambition 345 

be employed, and when it is employed normally 
it gives a great sense of satisfaction, and in- 
creases health. The individual feels the ex- 
hilaration of constant growth, and there is no 
stimulant like that. It gives an uplift to the 
entire nature. There is no tonic, no stimulant, 
like that of the successful pursuit of one's 
highest ambition. Everywhere we see people 
crippled, dwarfed, emasculated, because they 
have been denied the pursuit of their supreme 
ambition. In it they would be giants ; outside 
of it they are pygmies. There is something so 
utterly discouraging, disheartening, in being 
forced to give up the careers they long for, 
that the nature never entirely rallies from the 
shock. Everywhere we see these burned-out 
shells of individuals who have been robbed of 
their normal pursuit. They are ambitionless, 
restless, ineffective weaklings, mere pygmies 
of their possible selves. 

To be conscious of having fine ability, but 
being powerless to use it ; to feel oneself getting 
on in years without getting on in hfe; to feel 
the years slipping by, one by one, without any 
corresponding results from one's effort ; to feel 



346 The Joys of Living 

that the very material from which a successful 
life can be made is gradually drifting beyond 
our grasp ; to reach middle life or later without 
having made good, and yet to feel ambition 
prodding and spurring us on, and conscience 
upbraiding us for not seizing the opportunities 
that we let slip through our fingers ; to see the 
chance and yet to be so paralyzed that we can- 
not grasp it ; to be conscious that we are going 
down the decline towards the sunset of Ufe, 
with nothing to show for the misspent years, 
for all the ineffective years — this is agony in- 
deed. 

There is nothing so important in life as to 
get into the right place. Then we need no 
spurring, no goading on, for the exhilaration 
and tonic which comes from the normal exercise 
of our highest faculties will itself hold us to 
our task. The love of our work is the greatest 
incentive. No great work is ever done from 
compulsion. If there is no heart in it, it lacks 
hfe, force, everything. 

The consciousness that we cannot deliver the 
message which runs in the blood, that the thing 
which we have set our heart on and the thing 



Dangers of Thwarted Ambition 347 

which our ambition craves cannot be realized, 
causes intense suffering, and premature old 
age. 

To be conscious that we have the power, the 
ability to do some one thing superbly well, to 
feel that all our ability and inclination point 
to that one possible goal, and then to have it all 
thwarted, to be conscious that we must get our 
living by our weakness instead of by our 
strength, because of something we cannot 
control, makes the heart sick and the hair 
gray. 

A thwarted ambition seems to wrench the 
whole nature out of its normal orbit. Every- 
thing seems perverted when we cannot do that 
which we are able to do the easiest and best. 
Every one is conscious that he was made to fit 
perfectly the work for which he was intended, 
and that anything else will be a misfit. 

It is very easy to say that man is an adapt- 
able creature and can adjust himself to con- 
ditions which confront him. Of course, a man 
can do something in a work he is not fitted 
for; but he cannot do it superbly well, with that 
zest and enthusiasm which are characteristic 



348 The Joys of Living 

of excellency. He cannot jSnd in it satisfac- 
tion. 

The human mind is happiest when it is most 
active in performing the functions which it 
was intended to perform. One of man's great- 
est passions is that of achievement, the passion 
for doing things, the ambition to accomplish. 
This is one of the greatest satisfactions of life, 
and satisfaction is the chief ingredient in hap- 
piness. The consciousness of growth, which 
increases one's power, is one of the durable 
satisfactions of life. 

The love of achievement is satisfied in the 
very act of creation, in the realization of the 
ideal which has haunted the brain. Ease, 
leisure, comfort are nothing compared with 
the exhilaration which comes from achieve- 
ment. 

Who can describe the sense of triumph that 
fills the inventor, the joy that thrills him when 
he sees for the first time the perfect mechanism 
or device — the work of his brain and hand — 
that will ameliorate the hard conditions of 
mankind and help to emancipate man from 
drudgery? 



Dangers of Thwarted Ambition 349 

Who can imagine the satisfaction, the hap- 
piness, of the scientist who, after years of bat- 
tling with poverty, criticism, and denunciation, 
and the tortures of being misunderstood by 
those dearest to him, succeeds at last in wrest- 
ing some great secret from nature, in making 
some marvelous discovery that will push civili- 
zation forward? 

The exercise of the creative faculties, the 
stretching of the mind over greater and greater 
problems, and the solving of them, constitute 
a powerful mental tonic and give a satisfaction 
which nothing else gives. Think of the tame- 
ness, the insipidity, the weakness, the mental 
flabbiness of the life of the inactive and pur- 
poseless man who has nothing special to do, no 
great life-motive pushing him on, in com- 
parison with that of the man who feels all the 
forces within him heaving and tugging away 
to accomplish a mighty purpose ! 

The idle, aimless man does not know the 
meaning of personal power or the satisfaction 
and joy which comes to the doer, the achiever. 

We have an instinctive feeling that we have 
been set in motion by a Higher Power; that 



350 The Joys of Living 

there is an invisible spring within us — ^the 
^'imperious must" — ^which impels us to weave 
the pattern given us in the Mount of Trans- 
figuration of our highest moment, to make our 
life-vision real. A divine impulse constantly 
urges us to reach our highest ideal. There is 
something back of our supreme ambition 
deeper than a mere personal gratification. 
There is a vital connection between it and the 
great plan of creation, the progress, the final 
goal, of the race. 



XXIII 

AN IDLE LIFE AN UNHAPPY LIFE 
In idleness alone is there perpetual despair. — Carlyle. 

The Shah of Persia gazed in wonder at 
English ladies and gentlemen dancing. "Can 
they not hire persons to do it for them?" he 
said. He supposed that to look at dancing 
was more pleasurable than to dance. 

"We think the pleasure of life is in receiv- 
ing sensations — ^a most . . . limited idea," 
says Charlotte Perkins Oilman. "The main 
pleasures of life come through expression 
rather than impression. It is more pleasant 
to paint a picture than to look at it, — to sing 
than to hear singing. Supplied with every 
conceivable means of gratification, a human 
being soon exhausts the pleasure of having 
things, but given right avenues to employ his 
energies, he never exhausts the pleasure of 
doing things. The receiving power of an 
organism is not so great as its giving power. 
Expression is greater than impression. We 

351 



352 The Joys of Living 

fondly imagine that it is better to have things 
than do them, — an error carried to its natural 
height when acting under this mistake we seek 
to avoid work and look down upon the 
worker." 

If all of the results of the workers of the 
world — their discoveries, their inventions, their 
railroads, their steamships, their telephones, and 
all of the facilities which they have produced — 
if all traces of the workers' efforts were sud- 
denly withdrawn from this earth, and we were 
living at the mercy of the idlers, who would 
care to remain here ? What a dismal sort of a 
world this would be! 

It is work that keeps the human race in 
health, in contentment, in prosperity. Al 
man's task is his life-preserver, as well as his 
most potent worry-eliminator. 

I do not believe that it is possible for any 
able-bodied human being to be happy who 
lives an idle, purposeless life. It is not nat- 
ural for the human machinery to remain idle. 
There are a thousand indications in a man's 
economy that he was made for work, for strong 
vigorous action. 



An Idle Life an Unhappy Life 353 

Happiness comes from the normal exercise 
of our faculties, and whatever faculty or func- 
tion is not exercised tends to deteriorate. 
Whatever is idle, except for rest and recup- 
eration, is on the way to obhvion. 

Man is naturally a just being, and the uni- 
versal sense of justice, of fairness, is outraged 
when he refuses to do his part in the world's 
work. 

One of the most discouraging phases of our 
modern life is the large and ever increasing 
number of people who have no serious purpose 
in life but to spend their time turning money 
into nothing, nothing that counts, nothing 
that is worth while. Their principal occupa- 
tion is chasing after pleasure, and of course 
they are disappointed and discontented. 
Happiness is a product which comes from 
doing things worth while, from making one- 
self useful to the world, in doing one's share 
of the world's work. 

It is impossible for an habitually idle rich 
person to be really happy, because he is all 
the time conscious of that inferiority which 
inevitably comes from unused faculties. De- 



354 The Joys of Living 

terioration is the law written upon everything 
that is not in active use. How quickly a 
farm, a building, or a machine will deteriorate 
when unoccupied, unused. Things which are 
not serving any real purpose Nature takes 
back to the elements from which they came. 
The really happy person, therefore, must not 
only be active but he must also be conscious 
of doing his level best, otherwise the sense of 
self-reproval, self-reproach, will mar his hap- 
piness. 

There certainly is a great satisfaction in 
achievement, in doing things, which is never 
experienced in an idle life. Idle people, either 
rich or poor, if they are able to work, are 
always unhappy, discontented, dissatisfied. 
They flit about from one thing to another, and 
from place to place, in their vain effort to find 
something which will satisfy them. 

No man can be happy who is not wilUng to 
do his part in the world's work, who expects 
to take out of life's great granary all of the 
good things which the world's workers have 
put there, with no adequate compensation on 
his part. One of the principal constituents of 



An Idle Life an Unhappy Life 355 

happiness is honesty, and no one is honest who 
does not work according to his strength. 

I have seen rich young men who never did 
an honest day's work in their lives, never 
earned enough to buy a suit of clothes, and I 
have heard them tell what a bore it is to travel, 
how they are wearied with going through the 
art galleries. Why, some of these idlers are 
tired of living. Life loses its zest to the idlers. 
They do not get the real flavor of life, which 
comes from the consciousness of doing one's 
part in the world's work, doing one's level best 
and making life worth while. 

How much more we enjoy money which we 
have earned by hard work than that which we 
inherit, which we get without effort. 

We are so constituted that we cannot really 
enjoy what we do not earn. What we achieve 
by our own effort, our own initifstive, becomes a 
part of our very being. 

The idler does not enjoy a day's outing as 
does the man who works hard, who feels that 
he has earned his recreation; then it means 
something to him; every minute of it is a joy. 

There is only one price for real happiness. 



356 The Joys of Living 

the satisfaction of holding one's head up and 
looking the world in the face. Happiness 
must be purchased with honest personal en- 
deavor, with earnest effort to do one's share 
of the world's work. If we refuse to pay this 
price we cannot expect its blessings. 

The time will come when human drones will 
be ostracized from society as nobodies, as 
thieves of honest men's efforts, thieves of the 
results of honest men's labor. The coming 
civihzation will not tolerate these thieves of 
society, these lazy vagabonds who do noth- 
ing but steal the products of their labor and 
demorahze society by their vicious example. 

The lazy, indolent, idle man cannot respect 
himself, for there is something inside of him 
that tells him that he is a thief, tells him that 
it is unfair, cowardly, to expect that others will 
be the slave of his desires, that he shall have 
all of the good things of life and live in idle- 
ness, while they who do all the work have 
almost no pleasures and are not even able to 
live as human beings ought to live. 

Do not flatter yourself that you can be really 
happy unless you are useful. Happiness and 



An Idle Life an Unhappy Liee 357 

usefulness were born twins. To separate 
them is fatal. 

It is as impossible for a human being to be 
happy who is habitually idle as it is for a fine 
chronometer to be normal when not running. 

Happiness is incompatible with stagnation. 
A man must feel his expanding power lifting, 
tugging away at a lofty purpose, or he will 
miss the joy of living. 

The chief reason why a retired man is 
usually unhappy and discontented is because 
of his consciousness of deterioration, of a ces- 
sation of vigorous activity; he has a growing- 
sense of inferior thinking and production. 
And when a man ceases to do things, he soon 
loses his confidence that he can do them. 

There is no place in the universe for the 
idler; everything was planned and fitted for 
the dead-in-earnest worker. The best evi- 
dence that the idler is out of place everywhere 
is that he fits in nowhere. Nature begins to 
take away from him what he has because he 
does not use it. He is left empty-handed, 
helpless, miserable. 



XXIV 

JOY IN OUR WORK 

T/ork is the best thing to make us love life. 

— Eenest Rekan. 

"The man who works is the happy man." 

It make all the difference in the world to 
our health and happiness whether we look upon 
our work as drudgery or whether we do it with 
delight. Work should be a tonic, not a grind ; 
life a dehght, not a struggle. 

"Work, regarded by many as the curse sent 
upon man for sin, is instead God's highway to 
the hills of happiness." 

"Not drudgery, but blessed employment, 
which brings all the activities into play and 
gives a zest to recreation." 

Work is man's greatest blessing, for an oc- 
cupied mind is not a tempted mind; and it is 
a double blessing to the weak-minded. Vast 
multitudes of people have been saved from 
useless, dissipated lives by being obliged to 
work. 

358 



Joy in Our Work 359 

A vocation is not only a tremendous edu- 
cator, a developer, a strengthener of all our 
faculties, but this systematic, constant exer- 
cise of our faculties, gives us perpetual pleas- 
ure and is a great character builder, and pro- 
tector. 

It is the law of nature that anything that is 
not helpfuUy occupied begins to deteriorate, 
to go to pieces. It matters not whether it is 
an engine or a human brain, — exercise or de- 
teriorate is the law of life. 

Perhaps the majority of active men have 
lost their freshness and buoyancy of spirit in 
their work, have lost their mental elasticity, 
and they work in a mechanical, perfunctory 
way. They regard their work as more or less 
of a misfortune or a drudgery from which they 
would like to get away, and from which 
they expect to be released when they get a 
little farther along, a little higher up. 

Most people are looking and hoping for 
release from work, and yet all history and all 
experience prove that busy people, people who 
are constantly occupied, are the happiest. In 
fact, idleness is a great human curse. It is 



360 The Joys of Living 

an absolute foe of happiness. No idle man or 
woman has any comprehension of the word. 

The most unhappy person in the world is 
the one without employment; no amount of 
money can take the place of work. 

"Man must work. That is certain as the 
sun. But he may work grudgingly or he may 
work gratefully ; he may work as a man, or he 
may work as a machine. He cannot always 
choose his work, but he can do it in a generous 
temper, and with an up-looking heart. There 
is no work so rude that he may not breathe a 
soul into it; there is no work so dull, that he 
may not enliven it." 

God never meant labor to be a drudgery ; he 
meant it to be a pleasure, and we find that it 
is so in business houses where moral sunshine, 
harmony, and good will prevail. It is in such 
places that we also find the best work done, — 
best both in quality and in quantity. A con- 
tented mind, a cheerful disposition are the best 
kind of capital and pay big dividends. If 
you and those about you are cheerful and 
happy, business will come to you — ^you will 
attract it. 



Joy in Our Work 361 

We should take it for granted that no life 
can be entirely free from vexations, trials, 
troubles, sorrows, and disappointments ; but we 
should resolve that these things shall not be 
allowed to disturb our peace of mind, or to 
destroy our happiness. It is as amazing as it 
is sad, that we go about largely burdening our- 
selves with strivings that are of no conse- 
quence, and miss the gladness and exhilaration 
of living. No life is successful until it is ra- 
diant with happiness. 

No matter what your business may be, if 
you are an employer, you will find that no 
investment you can make will pay you so well 
as the effort to scatter heart sunshine through 
your estabhshment. Scolding, fault-finding, 
criticising, and slave-driving methods have 
been tried in every business from the begin- 
ning of time and have proved total failures. 
Many a man has strangled his business by his 
harsh, brutal treatment of his employees. He 
has crushed hope out of the most buoyant, 
strangled enthusiasm, killed spontaneity, and 
made service for every one in his estabhshment 
a dreary drudgery instead of a delight. 



362 The Joys of Living 

Many business men are beginning to dis- 
cover that it pays not only to make employees 
comfortable but happy. They are finding that 
this is the best kind of an investment. Men 
can produce more; they are more efficient, 
they do their best work when happiest. Our 
mental attitude has everything to do with our 
productiveness. Our brains do not work 
properly, our faculties will not give up their 
best when the mind is discordant, troubled. 

If you are an employer, do not go about 
your place of business as though you thought 
life were a wretched, miserable grind. Show 
yourself master of the situation, not its slave. 
Rise above the petty annoyances which destroy 
peace and harmony. Make up your mind 
that you are too large to be overcome by trifles. 
Resolve that you will be larger than your 
business, that you will overtop it with your 
manliness and cheerfulness. 

To say nothing of its being your duty to 
make the lives of those who are helping you to 
carry on your business as pleasant and as full 
of sunshine as possible, it is the best possible 
policy for you to pursue. You know very well 



Joy in Oue Work 363 

that a horse that is prodded and fretted and 
urged all the time by means of whip and spur 
and rein, will not travel nearly so far without 
becoming exhausted as one that is urged for- 
ward by gentleness and kind treatment. In 
their susceptibility to kindness, men and women 
are in nowise different from the lower animals. 
You cannot expect your employees to remain 
buoyant, cheerful, alert, and unwearied under 
the goad of scowls and the lash of a bitter 
tongue. Energy is only another name for en- 
thusiasm, and how can you expect those who 
work for you to be enthusiastic or energetic in 
your service when surrounded by an atmos- 
phere of despondency and gloom, when they 
expect a volley of curses and criticism every 
time you pass? 

There is no other one thing that will con- 
tribute so much to the life that is worth while 
as the optimistic habit. The habit of carrying 
a cheerful, hopeful, optimistic outlook upon 
life tends to light up one's pathway. 

Optimism is a grand creed. You can 
adopt no better life philosophy. The habit of 
looking for the best in our work, and of seeing 



364 The Joys of Living 

the best in everybody and everything is of 
untold value. It is the sign of a sane, healthy 
mind. 

"I have found my greatest happiness in 
labor," said Gladstone. "I early formed a 
habit of industry, and it has been its own 
reward." 

Many people are pessimistic because they 
see no consistency or relationship between 
what people call the dry, dreary drudgery of 
life and the idea that life was intended to be 
a J^Jy ^ perpetual delight. They cannot see 
any relation between a perpetual delight and 
hard work, disagreeable duties. They are un- 
able, unlike the bee, to extract honey from the 
bitter flowers of life. To them labor, every- 
thing that seems a drudgery, is a curse. 

The trouble is, many of us are tempted to 
overwork. We strain to do more than we are 
able. ^^Do not undertake more than you can ac- 
complish/'' says Dr. Thomas R. Slicer. "The 
unhappiness of life lies in the fret of it; not in 
its work, but in its worry. Good, strong well- 
ordered work never killed a man ; but the worry 
of it, the loading up of an hour with two hours' 



Joy in Our Work 365 

work, the loading up of an evening with too 
many engagements, being avaricious of pleas- 
ure and greedy of delight, will make us un- 
happy. Joy ceases to be joy when it is not 
conveniently handled and easily carried." 

The training, the discipline, the carrying out 
of the great life motive are the chief objects 
of labor. The Creator could have spared man 
physical labor, but he would not have been a 
developed man. 

Every nerve and every muscle, every fiber, 
every cell in our body, cries out for exercise, 
for work. The eye wants work, the ear wants 
work, the perceptions want work; every fac- 
ulty of the mind calls for healthful exercise. 

The perfect heaven which the old theo- 
logians and many people once pictured for 
themselves, would, in reality, make a hell for 
active, thinking people. What would we do 
in a place where the streets were paved with 
gold, the walls made of glass, and where there 
was perpetual rest? Every cell in our brain 
calls for activity, and existence in a place where 
the faculties were lulled to rest would be tor- 
ture to normal human beings. Man is so con- 



366 The Joys of Living 

stituted that he must be happiest when he is 
conscious that he is the most active in useful 
Av^ork. 

The best thing that will ever come to a human 
being will come from his daily task, come in 
the ordinary pursuit of his vocation. The 
extraordinary things come to us very seldom. 
One's daily life is where he uses his rehgion, 
his philosophy. This is the test of his quality, 
the measure of the man — the spirit in which he 
works and how he bears his daily task. 

There is no one thing that has ever done so 
much for humanity, that has saved so many 
human beings from despair, has kept so many 
from suicide ; no one thing that has called forth 
other resources, developed and strengthened 
other powers of mind and body as has hard 
work. It is unaccountable that anything 
which has been such a wonderful benefit to 
mankind as work has proved to be, should be 
loathed, despised, dreaded by so many people. 

Miss Alma-Tadema, in her lecture on 
*'What is Happiness?" said it took her five 
months to write down the definition of happi- 
ness. She says that happiness is the result of 



Joy iisr Our Work 367 

working hard and developing one's powers to 
the limit. She does not believe that it is pos- 
sible for a person to be very happy while he 
is conscious that he is developing only a small 
percentage of his possible ability. His happi- 
ness would be of a very low order because 
there would be a perpetual reprimand in him 
which would take the edge from his happiness 
if he were not doing his best to give his best 
to the world. 

What a joy there is in an exquisitely done 
job, a piece of work that is done to the com- 
plete finish, that has our unqualified approval, 
that makes us respect ourselves more! 

"Owing to ingrained habits," said Horace 
Mann, "work has always been to me what 
water is to a fish." 

There can be no greater happiness than the 
normal, vigorous exercise of one's faculties 
along the line of his bent. Life means little 
without a purpose. Once his life aim is lost, 
man simply exists — he does not really live. I 
have yet to see a human being wretched while 
busily occupied along the line of his talent. 
What can give better satisfaction than a sense 



368 The Joys of Living 

of mastery in our undertakings, a conscious- 
ness of the ability to do things that are dif- 
ferent from others about us, with consummate 
ease? 

The exercise which comes from our work, 
moreover, gives an enjoyment according to the 
kind and quality of the faculties that are 
called into action in the operation. If the 
benevolent faculties, the unselfish faculties are 
called into play, we get a much higher form of 
enjoyment, than when the greedy, selfish 
faculties are exercised. 

There is every indication in the nature of 
things that it was intended that man should 
find his greatest happiness, his great satisfac- 
tion in life, his chief joy, in his daily occupa- 
tion. Other things we enjoy now and then, 
occasionally, but if we love our work we have 
a perpetual feast. 

The satisfaction of the happiness which 
comes from travel, from viewing works of art, 
from reading a book, from social intercourse 
with friends, from the opera, from the theater, 
is a temporary thing in our life; but the man 
who loves his work has a daily enjoyment. 



Joy in Our Work: 369 

Most people merely exist, they do not really 
live. A man's vocation should be his joy; he 
should put his soul into it and find his dehght 
in it. The conscious self-expression of our- 
selves, the exercise of our powers and faculties 
should give constant satisfaction. Merely to 
grind out a day's work, because we have to do 
it, to work under pressure, is not living. 

If we are perfectly normal we should go to 
our work in the morning with that keen delight 
and anticipation that a prospective bride and 
bridegroom feel on the approach of their wed- 
ding day. 

What glorious pictures of anticipation a 
young, ambitious artist feels ! He can scarcely 
wait until he can return to his half finished pic- 
ture which has haunted him since he left it the 
night before. What a revolution in business 
there would be if employees in great establish- 
ments approached their work every morning 
with that supreme zest, with that glorious 
anticipation of a Michael Angelo or a Millet! 

With what keen delight does the young 
author go to his half finished book, to take up 
again the characters which have robbed him of 



370 The Joys of Living 

sleep and which have filled his vision through 
waking hours since he left it the night before. 

Every one ought to go to his work in the 
morning with a similar zest, with the antici- 
pated joy that can scarcely wait until the store, 
the factory, or the studio opens in the morn- 
ing. It would not be long before multitudes 
of employees found their own names over the 
doors of their business or profession; if every 
employee went to his task with such zest, with 
such keen delight and such vivid anticipation. 
How quickly we should then see the business 
millennium! 

Instead of allowing children to grow up 
with the idea that earning a living is some- 
thing to be dreaded, a disagreeable necessity, 
they should be made to feel that the bread and 
butter side of one's occupation is only a mere 
incident in one's vocation. One's occupation 
ought to be the calling in which he manufac- 
tures joy as well as a living. Our children 
should be taught that they will find their Eden 
of satisfaction in their vocation. They should 
be trained to think their life occupation is a 
grand privilege, which will bring supreme joy, 



Joy in Our Work 371 

if they find their right place in life. They 
should realize that there is no such thing as 
drudgery in the work one loves, that it is a per- 
petual delight, a glorious privilege. 

The youth should go to his occupation every 
morning with as keen anticipation as he would 
go to the amusement which he loves best. 



XXV 

TURNING THE WATER OF LIFE INTO WINE 

"If it is a dark day, never mind; you will lighten it up. 
If it is a bright day, you will add to the brightness. Give 
a word of cheer, a kindly greeting and a warm handshake to 
your friends. If you have enemies, look up, pass them by, 
forget and try to forgive. If all of us would only think 
how much of hunian happiness is made by ourselves, there 
would be less of human misery." 

"A CERTAIN aged woman, whose face is 
serene and peaceful, seems utterly above the 
little worries and vexations which torment the 
average woman and leave lines of care, 
though trouble has by no means passed her 
by. The Fretful Woman asked her one day 
the secret of her happiness; and the beautiful 
old face shone with joy," says The Woman's 
Home Companion, 

" *My dear,' she said, *I keep a Pleasure 
Book.' 

"*Awhat?' 

" *A Pleasure Book. Long ago I learned 
that there is no day so dark and gloomy that it 

372 



Turning Water of Life into Wine 373 

does not contain some ray of light, and I have 
made it one business of my life to write down 
the little things which mean so much to a 
woman. I have a book marked for every day 
of every year since I left school. It is but 
a little thing: the new gown, the chat with a 
friend, the thoughtfulness of my husband, a 
flower, a book, a walk in the field, a letter, 
a concert, or a drive; but it all goes into my 
Pleasure Book, and, when I am inclined to 
fret, I read a few pages to see what a happy, 
blessed woman I am. You may see my treas- 
ures if you will.' 

"Slowly the peevish, discontented woman 
turned over the book her friend brought her, 
reading a little here and there. One day's en- 
tries ran thus: 'Had a pleasant letter from 
mother. Saw a beautiful lily in a window. 
Found the pin I thought I had lost. Saw 
such a bright, happy girl on the street. Hus- 
band brought some roses in the evening.' 

"Bits of verse and lines from her daily read- 
ing have gone into the Pleasure Book of this 
world-wise woman, until its pages are a store- 
house of truth and beauty. 



374 The Joys of Living 

" *Have you found a pleasure for every- 
day?' the Fretful Woman asked. 

" 'For every day,' the low voice answered ; 
*I had to make my theory come true, you 
know.' " 

"The Fretful Woman ought to have 
stopped there, but did not ; and she found that 
page where it was written — *He died with his 
hand in mine, and my name upon his lips.' " 

Would it not be well for more of us to fol- 
low this dear old lady's example and keep a 
Pleasure Book? 

"Blessed are the joy makers." Fortu- 
nately for the world there are people who take 
a delight in mere living, who look upon life 
as a priceless gift, who delight in their work; 
who really enjoy everybody and everything, 
and who always give you the impression that 
they feel that they were born just in the best 
time, and in the best place in the world. 

"The cheerful man carries with him per- 
petually, in his presence and personality, an 
influence that acts upon others as summer 
warmth on the fields and forests. It wakes 
up and calls out the best that is in them. It 



Turning Water of Life into Wine 375 

makes them stronger, braver, and happier. 
Such a man makes a little spot of this world a 
lighter, brighter, warmer place for other peo- 
ple to live in. To meet him in the morning is 
to get inspiration which makes all the day's 
struggles and tasks easier. His hearty hand- 
shake puts a thrill of new vigor into your veins. 
After talking with him for a few minutes, you 
feel an exhilaration of spirits, a quickening of 
energy, a renewal of zest and interest in living, 
and are ready for any duty or service." 

He gets the most out of life who realizes the 
latent treasures invisible to most eyes, who 
sees beauties and graces where others see only 
ugliness, deformity. 

We all know sweet, cheerful, inspiring 
characters who have the wonderful faculty of 
turning the common water of life into the most 
delicious wine. Their presence is a tonic which 
invigorates, which helps us to bear our burdens. 
Their advent in the home seems like the com- 
ing of the sun after a long arctic night. They 
unlock the tongue, and we speak with the gift 
of prophecy. They are marvelous health pro- 
moters. 



376 The Joys of Living 

*'I see our brother, who has just been ill, 
lives on Grumbling Street," said a keen-witted 
Yorkshireman. "I lived there myself for 
some time, and never enjoyed good health. 
The air was bad, the house bad, the water bad ; 
the birds never came and sang in the street; and 
I was gloomy and sad enough. But I 'flitted.' 
I got into Thanksgiving avenue ; and ever since 
then I have had good health, and so have all 
my family. The air is pure, the house good; 
the sun shines on it all day; the birds are al- 
ways singing; and I am as happy as I can be. 
Now, I recommend our brother to 'flit.' There 
are plenty of houses to let on Thanksgiving 
avenue; he will find himself a new man if he 
will only come, and I shall be right glad to 
have him for a neighbor." 

A lady who was recently asked how she 
managed to get along so well with disagreeable 
people, said: ''It is very simple. All I do is 
to try to make the most of their good qualities 
and pay no attention to the disagreeable ones." 
The people who help us most are those who, 
like this lady, ignore, or rather try to eradicate, 
our faults, by drawing out and emphasizing 



Turning Water of Life into Wine 377 

our better qualities and attuning our minds to 
high ideals. 

Few people are large enough to rise above 
their aches and pains and disappointments. 
The majority are always talking about them, 
projecting their dark shadows into your atmos- 
phere, cutting off your sunshine with their 
clouds. Their ailments and their hard luck 
and misfortunes seem to be the biggest things 
about them. You never meet them but they 
thrust them into your presence. 

"So to order one's life as to keep, amid toils 
and suffering, the faculty of happiness, and 
be able to propagate it in a sort of salutary 
contagion among one's fellow-men, is to do a 
work of fraternity in the noblest sense," says 
Charles Wagner. 

The man who is not big enough to rise above 
the things that trouble him, who cannot over- 
top his aches and pains, annoyances and dis- 
appointments, so that they are of little con- 
sequence in comparison with his great life aim, 
will never become really strong. 

There is an unwritten law for people who are 
thoroughbred — the real gentleman and the 



378 The Joys of Living 

real lady — which compels them to keep their 
troubles, their ailments, their sorrows, their 
worries, their losses, to themselves. There is 
a fine discipline in it. It mellows the character 
and sweetens the life. But when these things 
are not borne heroically, they mar the character 
and leave their ugly traces in the face; their 
hideous forms appear in the manner and dis- 
figure the whole life. 

Learn to consume your own smoke. If you 
have misfortunes, pains, diseases, losses, keep 
them to yourself. Bury them. Those who 
know you have them will love you and admire 
you infinitely more for this suppression. A 
stout heart and persistent cheerfulness will be 
more than a match for all your troubles. 

In one of the battles of Crimea, a cannon- 
ball struck inside the fort, crashing through a 
beautiful garden; but from the ugly chasm 
there burst forth a spring of water which is 
still flowing. And how beautiful it is, if our 
many hidden sorrows become a blessing to 
others, through our determination to live and 
to do for those who need our help. Life is not 
given for mourning, but for unselfish service. 



Turning Water of Life into Wine 379 

Resolve that you are too large to be over- 
come by trifles; that you will be larger than 
the things that tend to annoy you; that you 
will overtop them with your gladness and 
cheerfulness. 

In one of Goethe's stories there is a descrip- 
tion of the rude fisherman's hut which was 
glorified by the light of a little silver lamp. 
The doors and roof, the floors, the furniture — 
everything in the hut was transformed into 
silver by the magic of the silver lamp. So a 
single sunny soul transforms many a poverty- 
stricken home with brightness and good cheer. 

We receive more of the true fortune the 
world about us has to bestow, if we try to win 
our wealth from nature and from other person- 
alities by an invisible cheerfulness. 

"Here is a bad, disagreeable day, as we call 
it," says Dr. Savage. "Shall we become un- 
happy because we get sprinkled and the black 
of our boots is spotted, or shall we learn to think 
of the wonder of the great forces that through- 
out the universe are playing round our little 
planet, sometimes bursting through in sun- 
shine, again draping the heavens in clouds, 



380 The Joys of Living 

sometimes lifting up the waters and the dew 
from the ponds and the rivers and the lakes 
and the grass, again dropping them down in 
rain or sleet or snow, and so keeping the great 
forces of life and the changes of the world 
going their marvelous rounds? There is 
beauty in the leaden sky ; there is God's wonder 
in every drop of rain ; there are marvels that are 
infinite in a flake of snow. Shall we forget all 
this, and merely be troubled because they hap- 
pen to come at a time when we who, in our 
egotism, would desire to manage the universe, 
would have had the weather a little different?" 

I know a lady who has been confined to her 
couch in a small room for years, and can see 
only the tops of trees from her resting-place, 
yet she is so cheerful and hopeful th^-t people 
go to her with their troubles and always go 
away comforted and encouraged. 

"Oh, isn't the spring beautiful!" (or sum- 
mer, autumn, or winter, as the case may be) 
is her exclamation to callers, even when her 
body is quivering with pain. Her eyes are 
always smihng. 

Will any one say that this woman, who has 



Turning Water of Life into Wine 381 

brought light and cheer to all who know her, 
is poor, or a failure simply because she has 
been confined to that little room all these 
years ? No ; she is a greater success than many 
a rich woman. She has the wealth that is 
worth while, — the wealth that survives pain, 
sorrow, and disasters of all kinds, — that does 
not burn up, — which floods or droughts cannot 
affect, — the inexhaustible wealth of a sunny, 
cheerful soul. 

Happiness is not an accident. It does not 
live in things. It does not depend, as most 
people think, upon ha\ang money or not hav- 
ing it. It is a little more convenient, a little 
more comfortable, we admit, to have money; 
but there is not such a very great difference 
between riding in an automobile or fine car- 
riage and riding in a street car; not so very 
much difference between the comforts in a 
palatial home and a very modest one, if clean 
and neat, and love dwells there. 

In fact, love is very often a stranger in pal- 
aces. There is very little comfort or happiness 
in any home where affection and sweet confi- 
dence are absent. 



382 The Joys of Living 

Kindness of heart, charity, helpfulness, un- 
selfishness, love, honesty, sincerity, simplicity, 
sympathy — these are the most desirable things 
in life. These are the things we are all trying 
to get. If we do not have them ourselves, we 
are trying to get close to those who do possess 
them. 

To save the life of a girl whom he had never 
seen before, Willie Rugh, a crippled newsboy 
of Gary, Indiana, recently offered to give his 
withered leg for skin grafting. The young 
woman was discharged from the hospital cured, 
but the anesthetic given to Hugh before the 
operation had been too much for his weak 
lungs; pneumonia, developed and death re- 
sulted. 

As death stiffened his fingers, a rose, given 
him by the girl for whom he was sacrificing his 
hf e, fell from his hand upon the coverlet of the 
hospital cot. 

"I'm glad," he had whispered a few minutes 
before the end. ''Tell her that — that I'm jes' 
glad." 

And then when his foster-mother knelt be- 
side the bed and hid her face in the edge of 



Turning Water of Life into Wine 383 

the boy's pillow, he reached out a weak hand 
and stroked her hair. 

"Don't cry, Mammy," he begged. "I never 
'mounted to nothin' before, and now you know 
I done sompin' fer somebody." 

Conscious to the last, he kept smiling, while 
the nurse and the surgeon in the room, filled 
with emotion, turned their faces away to hide 
their tears. 

"I count this thing to be grandly true. 
That a noble deed is a step toward God; 
Lifting the soul from the common clod 
To a purer air and a broader view." 

What a wonderful world this would be to 
live in, if we all made a strenuous effort to 
obtain the things that are really worth while — 
things that make for an unselfish, joyous char- 
acter! How quickly the millennium would 
come if everybody was kind, unselfish, and 
true, bouyant, clean, and honest! We would 
have no need of penitentiaries or courts of jus- 
tice. The Golden Rule would everywhere be 
the law of life. 

Next to the duty of self-denial comes the 
duty of delight. What ripeness is to an or- 



384 The Joys of Living 

ange, what song is to a lark, what culture 
and refinement are to the intellect, happiness 
is to the soul. As vulgarity and ignorance 
betoken a neglected mind, so unhappiness and 
misery proclaim the neglected heart. The 
normal nature will keep strong and fresh the 
chords that vibrate joy. 

A Cabinet officer once said to the late 
Charles A. Dana, who was fairly bubbling over 
with the enjoyment of his work: **Well, Mr. 
Dana, I don't see how you stand this infernal 
grind." 

"Grind?" said Mr. Dana. "You never were 
more mistaken. I have nothing but fun." 

"I have told you," says Southey, "of the 
Spaniard who always put on spectacles when 
about to eat cherries, in order that the fruit 
might look larger and more tempting. In like 
manner I make the most of my enjoyments; 
and though I do not cast my eyes away from 
my troubles, I pack them in as small a compass 
as I can for myself, and never let them annoy 
others." 

We are all richer in happiness material than 
we think. There are a thousand unrecognized. 



Turning Water of Life into Wine 385 

unutilized wellsprings of joy within us. Just 
think what a person who has been blind and 
deaf from birth, with a soul in tune with the 
beautiful and the true, would get out of the 
things in our every-day life, which seem so 
common and sordid to us, if they were only 
given a temporary use of their lost eyesight 
and hearing! What joy they would get out 
of the weeds by the roadside, which are dis- 
tasteful to us, and out of the sounds in the 
street, which only annoy our ears! 

Why, we are all infinitely richer than we 
think! Our faculties have not been cultivated 
to seize, to appreciate and enjoy a tithe of the 
multitude of things all about us, which would 
entrance the souls of those who are deprived of 
all opportunities of education and training. 



XXVI 

LONGEVITY AND HAPPINESS 

"The face cannot betray the years until the mind has given 
its consent. The mind is the sculptor." 

"We renew our bodies by renewing our thoughts; change our 
bodies, our habits, by changing our thoughts." 

"Last Sunday a young man died here of ex- 
treme old age at twenty-five," wrote John 
Newton. 

George Meredith, on the celebration of his 
seventy-fourth birthday said: "I do not feel 
that I am growing old, either in heart or mind. 
I still look on life with a young man's eye." 

You cannot tell how old people are by the 
calendar. You must measure the spirit, the 
temperament, the mental attitude, to get 
the age. I know young men who are in their 
sixties, and old men who are in their thirties. 
"Old age seizes upon ill-spent youth like fire 
upon a rotten house." 

No one is old until the interest in life is gone 
out of him, until his spirit becomes aged, until 

386 



Longevity and Happiness 387 

his heart becomes cold and unresponsive; as 
long as he touches life at many points he can 
not grow old in spirit. 

"To live on without growing old, to feel 
aUve and hold, to the last, whatever is best in 
youth-vigor of mind and freshness of feeling — 
then, when the end has come, to find in the 
depths of the soul the belief of earlier years, 
and to fall softly asleep with a sure hope, is not 
this an enviable lot?" 

The youth cannot understand why the close 
of the day does not have that "wild gladness 
of morning"; it has riper, richer hues. The 
sunset is just as beautiful, and often more 
glorious than the sunrise. The last of life 
should be just as beautiful and grand as the 
first of hfe,— "The last of life— for which the 
first was made." 

Age has its pleasures. If the life has been 
well lived, the reminiscences are grand, the 
satisfactions beautiful. Indeed, what can 
give greater pleasure than to look back upon 
a life well spent, lived usefully, beautifully, 
fruitfully? When we arrive at the Port of 
Old Age, after a rough passage over a stormy 



38B The Joys of Living 

sea, there is a feeling of rest, of completeness, 
of safety. 

It is said that "long livers are great hopers." 
If you keep your hope bright in spite of dis- 
couragements, and meet all difficulties with a 
cheerful face, it will be very difficult for age 
to trace its furrows on your brow. There is 
longevity in cheerfulness. 

Time does not touch fine, serene characters. 
They can't grow old. An aged person ought 
to be calm and balanced. All of the agita- 
tions and perturbations of youth ought to have 
ceased. A sweet dignity, a quiet repose, a 
calm expression should characterize people 
who are supposed to have had all that is rich- 
est and best out of the age in which they lived. 

There is no justness or fairness in ranking 
people by their years. People ought to be 
judged old or young by their mental condition, 
their attitude toward life, their interest in life, 
their youthful or aged thought. If they face 
toward youth and optimism, if they are hope- 
ful, cheerful, helpful, enthusiastic, they ought 
to be classed as young, no matter what their 
years may say. 



Longevity and Happiness 389 

The elixir of youth which alchemists sought 
so long in chemicals, lies in ourselves. The 
secret is in our own mentality. Perpetual 
rejuvenation is possible only by right thinking. 
We look as old as we think and feel because it 
is thought and feeling that change our appear- 
ance. 

Mental poise means mental harmony, and 
harmony prolongs life. Whatever disturbs 
our peace of mind, or upsets our equilibrium, 
causes friction, and friction whittles away 
life's delicate machinery at a rapid rate. 

Few know how to protect themselves from 
rasping, wearing, grinding, disintegrating in- 
fluences in their environment. 

Nothing else more effectually retards age 
than keeping in mind the bright, cheerful, 
optimistic, hopeful, buoyant picture of youth, 
in all its splendor, magnificence; the picture 
of the glories which belong to youth — youth- 
ful dreams, ideals, hopes, and all the qualities 
peculiar to young life. 

"Keeping alive that spirit of youth," Steven- 
son used to say, was "the perennial spring of 
all the mental faculties." 



390 The Joys of Living 

What a mistake we make in associating the 
great joys of hfe with youth! Everywhere 
we hear people say, "Oh, let the young people 
enjoy themselves. They will only be young 
once. They will come into the troublesome 
part of life soon enough. Let them be happy 
before the clouds come." It is estimated that 
the person who lives a perfectly normal hfe 
will experience infinitely greater joys and will 
be much happier in his seventies than in his 
teens. 

When a man has reached middle life or later, 
he is largely the creature of his habits, and he 
cannot develop entirely new brain cells, new 
faculties. We enjoy the exercise of the fac- 
ulties which we have been accustomed to use, 
the faculties which have been most dominant, 
active, throughout our lifetime. 

One reason why many people have such a 
horror of old age is because they have made no 
provision for their occupation in their declin- 
ing years. They spend all their energies in 
making a living, and do very little towards 
making a life. The curse of old age is a lack 
of interesting mental occupation, and it is 



Longevity and Happiness 391 

usually due to an early lack of training for 
an interesting old age, "The mind that is 
vacant is a mind distres't." To avoid mental 
old age ought to be every one's ambition. Not 
having formed the habit of reading, in youth, 
very few ever cultivate the habit and taste for 
reading late in life, and the result is that many 
people find old age extremely dreary and 
monotonous. A person who has always kept 
up the habit of improving himself, reading 
good books, thinking and contemplating great 
truths, who has developed the love of art and 
beauty, and who has cultivated his social fac- 
ulties, finds plenty of employment for his last 
years. 

One of the most pathetic pictures in Ameri- 
can life is that of the old men who have retired, 
but had nothing to retire to, except their for- 
tunes. They had never prepared for old age 
enjoyment. In their younger days they did 
not develop the qualities which make leisure 
even endurable, to say nothing of enjoyable. 

Everywhere abroad we see the retired Amer- 
ican who feels out of place and homesick, 
hungiy for the exercise again in the office, in 



892 The Joys of Living 

the store, with the customer and the check 
book. 

He cannot talk and laugh as he used to with 
his old college mates and friends, for even his 
mirth and enthusiasms have evaporated. No 
matter how hard he tries to enjoy himself in 
the art galleries, the concert halls, the yard 
stick, customers and schemes for making 
more money keep revolving in his mind, and 
strangle all the efforts of the finer senti- 
ments to assert themselves. The things which 
he could have once enjoyed so much now only 
bore him. 

Some of the most disappointed men I have 
ever met have been men who retired after hav- 
ing made a fortune. Years of leisure looked 
enticing to them when they were struggling 
so hard in their earlier days to get a start and 
in their later days to accumulate a fortune. 
Their imaginations pictured a blissful condi- 
tion when they could lie abed as late as they 
chose in the morning, do whatever they felt 
like doing, instead of being prodded by that 
"imperious must," which had held the lash over 
them for so many years. And the beginning 



Longevity and Happiness 393 

of their retirement was so blissful that they 
thought they had never before really lived. 
But very soon the days began to drag; and 
they discovered that their lives were not fitted 
to enjoy very much outside of the routine rut 
between their office and the home. After re- 
tirement their faculties which had been used in 
mental wrestling with men and things, in the 
barter of trade, soon began to atrophy; that 
which had been their strongest hold gradually 
faded out and left no adequate compensation. 
They soon found that their real enjoyment 
was in the exercise of their brain cells, that 
when they tried to find satisfaction and real 
enjoyment by the use of faculties which had 
not been developed, which had been little used, 
there was no corresponding satisfaction. 

In boyhood the family necessity forced 
many of these men to find work, and their early 
education was neglected. The whole train of 
their business lives had been in an entirely dif- 
ferent direction, away from the things they are 
now trying to enjoy. 

How frequently we have heard of men who 
after acquiring a fortune, have retired in ro- 



394 The Joys of Living 

bust health and at the very height of their 
mental vigor, and yet shortly after went into 
a decline and in a few years died. 

Of what use are books and pictures and 
statues to him who has robbed his intellect of 
all that deepens and enhances life's value? 
There is no greater self-deception than that 
which impels one to give the best part of him- 
self and the best years of his life for something 
which he hopes to enjoy when the fires of youth 
have departed and there is nothing left but the 
embers and ashes of age. 

An observing writer has said: "How many 
men there are who have toiled and slaved to 
make money that they might be happy by and 
by, but who, by the time they came to be fifty 
or sixty years old, had used up all the enjoy- 
able life in them! During their early life, 
they carried economy and frugality to the ex- 
cess of stinginess, and when the time came that 
they expected joy, there was no joy for them." 

The man who has trained his mind, who has 
prepared himself for the enjoyment of his re- 
tirement in his late years is a fortunate man. 
If a man has richly earned his leisure by an in- 



Longevity and Happiness 395 

dustrious life, if he has tried to do his share 
in the world's work and has trained his mind 
for enjoyment after his retirement, he ought 
to be able to be very happy. There are multi- 
tudes of ways in which an educated mind can 
derive enjoyment. 

Think of the world of pleasure which can be 
found in books alone to a person who loves 
them and knows how to appreciate them! It 
is hard to conceive of greater delight. This 
would mean very little to the man who has 
spent half a century plodding away in the 
business rut and who has perhaps never read 
a book through in his life. 

Think of the enjoyment possible in the 
world of nature, of art, to a man who trained 
his esthetic faculties, as did Ruskin, where 
every natural object, every flower, every plant, 
every tree, every sunset, would awaken de- 
lights that would ravish an angel. 

What dehghts await the man who has made 
it a Ufe habit to improve himself, to absorb 
knowledge from every conceivable source! 
Who can imagine greater dehght than that 
which comes from feeling one's mind expand. 



396 The Joys of Living 

from pushing one's horizon of ignorance 
farther and farther away from him every- 
day! 

There is no satisfaction in life like that 
which comes from helping others to help them- 
selves ; and the man who has kept this practice 
through his business career will find endless 
satisfaction and joy in retiring to this helpful 
hfe. 

It is not only the man whose entire experi- 
ence has been confined to the narrow business 
or professional rut that finds life very disap- 
pointing after retiring, but also the man who 
has had early advantages, but whose absorption 
in his career has shut him out of the world of 
books, the world of art, beauty, and travel, and 
closed the avenues of the social side of life, and 
destroyed the faculties that had found early 
enjoyment in these things. This has been the 
sad experience of men who have tried to find 
enjoyment after retiring, but discovered that 
they had lost their power of appreciation and 
enjoyment of things which they once loved so 
much. This was Darwin's experience. He 
was shocked to find that during his years of 



Longevity and Happiness 897 

complete absorption in scientific studies, he 
had entirely lost his love for Shakespeare and 
music, that the faculties which presided over 
these things had become atrophied from disuse 
by nature's inexorable law, which is "use or 
lose." 

We get our greatest happiness in the use of 
the faculties which have been long and habitu- 
ally exercised. It is not an easy thing late in 
life to awaken new sentiments, new powers, 
new faculties, which have been lying dormant 
for so many years. It is the exercise of the 
faculties and powers which we have been using 
all our lives which is going to bring us the only 
happiness and satisfaction of which we are 
capable. 

By retiring, the average business man re- 
linquishes his hold upon the very faculties 
which are in any condition to give him the most 
satisfaction. He cannot get very much out of 
trying to arouse faculties which have been ly- 
ing dormant for half a century, and perhaps 
have never been thoroughly awakened or de- 
veloped. 

I believe that the majority of men who retire 



398 The Joys of Living 

not only fail to find happiness, but actually 
shorten their lives. 

How often we hear of men dying, just be- 
cause they have given up the only thing they 
could do, and can find no other stimulant to 
exertion to take its place, — like the horse which 
so interested Mr. Pickwick, which was kept up 
by the shafts in which it drew a carriage and 
collapsed when removed from them! 

If you would keep young you must learn the 
secret of self -rejuvenation, self -refreshment, 
self -renewal, in your thought, in your work, in 
your youthful interests. 

If you think of yourself as perpetually 
young, vigorous, robust, and buoyant, because 
every cell in the body is constantly being re- 
newed, decrepitude will not get hold of you. 

I believe that the average person could ex- 
tend his life very materially, and especially 
increase his capacity for both achievement and 
enjoyment wonderfully by forming the habit 
of excluding from his mind especially before 
retiring, all unhappy thoughts. 

In other words, if we could only learn the 
secret of what is called, in Eastern countries. 



Longevity and Happiness 399 

"orienting the mind," first emptying it of 
everything that can mar it or cause pain, and 
get the right mental attitude, the attitude of 
love, charity, of kindliness, of magnanimity, 
helpfulness towards every living creature, it 
would revolutionize civihzation. 

There is something wrong when we wake up 
in the morning with careworn faces, when we 
feel cross and crabbed and out of sorts, when 
we feel so touchy at the breakfast table that 
everybody must handle us with gloves. There 
is something wrong, when we do not wake 
from sleep fresh, strong, vigorous, cheerful, 
bright, full of energy, vigor, ambition, eager 
to get to our work which is a perpetual tonic. 

It is not the troubles of to-day, but those of 
to-morrow and next week and next year, that 
whiten our heads and wrinkle our faces. 

One's disposition has a powerful influence 
upon one's longevity. People who fret and 
fume and worry, who nag and scold, who are 
touchy and sensitive, age rapidly. 

How can one have lines of age or weariness 
or discontent when one is happy, busy, and 
one's spirit is ever, ever young? 



400 The Joys of Living 

I know an old lady who has such a sweet, 
benignant, serene nature that she has robbed 
old age of its ugliness. 

"Frame your minds to mirth and merriment, 
Which bar a thousand harms and lengthen life." 

Happiness is a great vitality generator, a 
great strength sustainer, and a powerful health 
tonic. 

"A very fine old gentleman of the best 
American type, accounting for his advanced 
age and his advanced happiness, said: *It is 
quite simple. Lead a natural life, eat what 
you want, and walk on the sunny side of the 
street.' 

"There's a cheerful, comfortable bit of ad- 
vice that does not ask you to live like an angel 
or die like a saint. By a natural life the old 
gentleman undoubtedly meant that we were 
not to live in excess of our incomes, turn night 
into day, or abuse our bodies. By avoiding 
these modern temptations one avoids dyspep- 
sia, apoplexy, and nervous prostration, and so, 
being normally healthy, one can pretty gener- 
ally eat what one wants to. As for the sunnj; 



Longevity and Happiness 401 

side of the street-— that is the best bit of the old 
gentleman's whole creed. The crowd that 
travels on the shady side are a bad lot. They 
are such questionable fellows as Worry, Mel- 
ancholy, Greed, Vanity, Idleness, and Crime. 
On the sunny side, however, it's a jolly crew 
that jogs along — Mirth, Pleasure, Success, 
Health, Friendship, Love, good fellows all 
who help tremendously to halve the burdens 
and double the blessings of this little affair we 
call life, and in whose company, blow high or 
blow low, it's always the fairest of weather." 

"Pleasures belong to youth; joys to middle 
life; blessedness to old age," says Lyman Ab- 
bott. "Therefore old age is best; because it 
is the portico to a palace beautiful, where hap- 
piness is neither withered by time nor destroyed 
by death. Yet one need not wait for old age. 
He who in the prime of life has learned this 
secret of immortal happiness can with Paul 
bid defiance to all the enemies of happiness. 
He welcomes troubles as contributions to his 
happiness because builders of his character: 
'We glory in tribulations also: knowing that 
tribulation worketh patience; and patience, 



402 The Joys of Living 

experience; and experience, hope: and hope 
maketh not ashamed; because the love of God 
is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit 
which is given unto us.' " 

The greatest conqueror of age is a cheerful, 
hopeful, loving spirit. A man who would 
conquer the years must have charity for all. 
He must avoid worry, envy, malice, and jeal- 
ousy,— all the small meannesses that feed bit- 
terness in the heart, trace wrinkles on the brow, 
and dim the eye. The pure heart, a soimd 
body, and a broad, healthy, generous mind, 
backed by a determination not to let the years 
count, constitute a fountain of youth which 
every one may find in himself. 

"O, Youth! for years so many and sweet, 
'Tis known, that thou and I were one, 
I'll think it but a fond conceit — 
It cannot be that thou art gone! 
The vesper-bell hath not yet tolled: 
And thou were aye a Master Bold! 
What strange Disguise hast now put on. 
To make believe that thou art gone? 
I see these Locks in silvery slips 
This drooping Gait, this altered Size: 
But Springtime blossoms on thy Lips, 
And Tears take sunshine from thine eyes! 
Life is but Thought: so think I will 
That Youth and I are House-mates still." 



Longevity and Happiness 403 

Of those who live life to the full of useful- 
ness, service, and enjoyment, it may be said: 

"Age cannot wither them 
Nor custom stale their infinite variety." 



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